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NATURE AND THE BIBLE. 



UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME. 



CHRISTIANITY AND POSITIVISM. A Series of 
Lectures to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics. 
By James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., President of Princeton 
College. 12mo, $1.75. 

" In the present as in preceding defences of her divine origin, Christi- 
anity finds in her ranks the men demanded by the time. Among those who 
have been foremost in lier service, Dr. McCosh holds an honorable place. A 
large part of his life has been devoted to the study and the discussion of the 
main questions involved in the debate between the Positivists and Materi- 
alism on the one side and spiritual Christianity on the other. 

''This book grapples directly with the vital questions. Every reader 
must admire its fairness. It is all the better adapted to popular reading 
from having been written to be delivered to an audience. Indeed, the 
thinking is generally so clear, and the style so animated and luminous, that 
any person of average intelligence and culture may understand and enjoy 
the discussion; and no such person who has begun to read the work will be 
likely to rest satisfied till he has finished it. It is in some parts eloquent 
and beautiful, and is throughout forcible and efiective for its end. Would 
that thousands of the young people of our country, and of all classes whose 
faith may be in peril, might read it with the attention it deserves." — 
Independent. 

CHRISTIANITY AND SCIENCE. A Series of 
Lectures. By Rev. A. P. Peabody, D.D., of Harvard College. 

$1.75. 

" One of the best books we have read in a long time, — a manly, candid, 
noble, reasonable defence of the Christian faith. "We do not see how any 
thoughtful person can read it in vain. Dr. Peabody plants himself fairly on 
the very postulates of scientific men, and proceeds to show how all that they 
claim for true science is fulfilled in the religion of Jesus. The three sources 
of proof from which scientific men draw — testimony, experiment (or expe- 
rience), and intuition — are made to render their tribute to Christianity, and 
in a way which, while necessarily brief, is nevertheless so compact and clear 
and forcible as to be thoroughly conclusive. A warm heart as well as a 
clear head shines through these pages, and occasionally lights up the calm 
reasoning with a gem of brilliant beauty.'* — Illustrated Christian Weekly. 



ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS. 



-<fet^\F^. 




Eozoon Canadense, the oldest known of the Sheretzim of the Waters. — Portions of 
the Skeleton, from a nature-print, taken from a specimen etched with acid. 
The laminated portion shows the calcareous skeleton in white. The upper 
right hand corner shows inorganic limestone and serpentine, with frag- 
ments of Eozoon. The lower figure is a part of one of the laminae en- 
larged, showing the tubulated cell-wall at [a), and the Supplemental 
Skeleton, with canals, at [h). 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE I. . * p. 121. 



FRONTISPIECE. 



Nature and the Bible, 



a Course of Utttnxtti 

Delivered in New York, in December, 1874, 
ON the 

MORSE FOUNDATION OF THE UNION 
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 



BY 



J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S, F.G.S., 

Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University, Author op 

"Archaia," "Acadian Geology," "The Story of 

THE Earth,'^ &c. 



NEW YORK: ^'^S^mm^^' 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 

1875- 







Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Cambridge : 
Press of JoJm Wilson &> Son. 



PEEPACE. 



The subject assigned to the Lectureship 
founded by the late Professor Samuel F. B. 
MoESE, LL.D., — ^^The Relations of the Bible 
to the Sciences/' — is one of so wide scope 
that any full or exhaustive treatment of it in 
a course of six lectures would be impossible. 
I have therefore restricted myself to the con- 
sideration of some of those points of contact 
of Natural and Physical Science with the 
Bible, which are now of the greatest impor- 
tance and interest, with reference more es- 
pecially to present controversies. 

Some of these subjects I have already 
treated in greater detail in my work entitled 
^^Archaia, or Studies of the Cosmogony and 
Natural History of the Hebrew Scriptures ; " ^ 
but in these Lectures, though less fully dis- 
cussed, they are brought up to the present 
state of knowledge. 

* London and Montreal. 1860. 



6 PREFACE, 

It should be unclerstood that the stand- 
point of the writer is not that of a theolo- 
gian or a metaphysician, but of a student 
of Nature, who, while he has been chiefly 
occupied with investigations and teaching in 
Natural Science, has been a careful and rev- 
erent student of Holy Scripture, not with the 
view of suj)porting therefrom any particular 
school of theology, but of learning for his own 
spiritual guidance the mind of God. He can 
sympathize alilve with those scientific students 
who are rej)elled from the Scriptures by cur- 
rent misapprehensions as to their teachings, 
and with those Christians who regard the ad- 
vance of Science with some degree of dread, 
as possibly hostile to rehgion ; and will be 
thankful if he can, to any extent, guide either 
to a better position in relation to the word 
and works of God, and to a better use of both 
with reference to their own higher welfare. 

J. W. DAWSON. 

Jan tr ART, 1875. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface 5 



LECTURE I. 

General Relations of Science to the Bible . 11 

Nature of the Subject 11 

Relations to Revelation in General 20 

Monotheism and the Unity of Nature .... 27 

Law, Order, Use, and Plan 30 

LECTURE 11. 

Biblical Views of the Universe as a Whole . 47 

The Heavens 47 

The Atmosphere or Expanse ....... 51 

The Planetary and Starry Heaven 64 

The Third Heaven 69 

LECTURE III. 

The Science of the Earth in Relation to the 

Bible 77 

Generalizations of Geology 79 

Creative iEons of Genesis 84 

Order of Creation as compared with Geology . 88 



8 CONTENTS. 

LECTURE IV. 

PAGE 

The Origin and History of Animal Life in 

Nature and the Bible 113 

Origin and History of Life in Genesis . . . . 114 

Origin and History according to Geology . . . 117 

Physical Theories of Life 126 

Theories of Derivation of Species . . . . ^ 132 

LECTURE V. 

The Origin and Early History of Man, accord- 
ing TO Science and the Bible 149 

Testimony of Geology 149 

Antiquity of Man 159 

Relation of Pre-Historic Man to Modern Races . 163 

Comparison with Biblical History 175 

LECTURE YI. 

Review of Schools of Thought 185 

Sceptical Philosophies 186 

Materialistic Science 191 

Evolutionist Archaeology 201 

Modified Chiistianity 210 

Appendix 

A. Animal Nature of Eozoon 223 

B. Testimony of Palaeontology with regard to 

Derivation of Species 225 

C. Additional Facts relating to Primitive Man 241 

D. The Biblical Dehige 250 

E. Prof. Pritchard's Views . 251 

Index 255 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PLATE PAGE 

I. (Froxtispiece) Eozobn Canadense. 

II. Microscopic Structure of Limestones . 82 

III. Crumpled Laurentian Rocks 97 

IV. PSILOPHYTON, A SiLURIAN PlANT .... 107 

y. Primordial Animals . 118 

VI. Mesozoic Reptiles 123 

VII. Sivatherium, a Mammal of the Miocene 140 

VIII. The Mammoth and his Contemporaries . 152 

IX. Prehistoric Skulls , , , 164 

X. Mammoth carved on Ivory 170 



NATURE AND THE BIBLE. 



LECTURE L 

GENERAL RELATIONS OF SCIENCE TO THE 

BIBLE. 



Nature of the Subject. — Relations of Science to 
Revelation in General. — Monotheism and the 
Unity of Nature. — Law, Order, Use, and Plan in 
Nature and in the Bible. 

O CTENCEj it has been said^ ^^ discloses the 
method of the world^ but not its cause ; 
religion^ its cause^ but not its method." ^ 
There is much truth in the distinction^ but it 
does not contain the whole truths else it would 
be comparatively easy to draw a line between 
the domains of religion and science, which rea- 
sonable men would have no desire to trans- 
gress. The truth is, however, that science 
does, through its ideas of unity and correla- 

* Martineau. 



12 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

tion of forces^ and the evidence of design in 
organic structures^ not obscurely point to a 
First Cause^ and that religion as embodied in 
Holy Scripture does affirm method in nature. 
On the other hand^ the uniformity of nature 
has a tendency to create a prejudice in the 
minds of scientific men against what they 
term divine intervention ; and narrow views 
of rehgion tend to attribute to God an arbi- 
trary and capricious action, not in harmony 
with either science or the Bible. 

Again, the Bible states a fixed and distinct 
dogma as to creation, while science in its con- 
templation of the method of nature is pro- 
gressive, and continually changing its point of 
view. The Bible stands hke some great hoar 
cliff, which to the theologian, accustomed to 
view it always from one point, presents no 
change except that which results from the 
vicissitudes of sun and shade, winter and sum- 
mer ; but to the scientific thinker, drifting on 
the current of discovery, its outline may per- 
petually change. It is natural to the one 
observer to believe that there is only one 
aspect which can be true ; while it is equally 
natural to the other to think that the form of 
the cliff is liable to many mutations, or that 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 13 

it may even be a mere bank of cloudy which 
some strong wind of discussion may dissipate 
altogether. In contradistinction to both these 
extreme views^ it is the duty of the Christian 
student of nature to endeavor to ascertain for 
any given position in the study of the method 
of the world^ what are its actual points of con- 
tact with revelation^ and to expose such mis- 
conceptions as may have arisen from partial 
and imperfect notions of either. 

It must be admitted that our subject^ when 
viewed in this way, does not lie in the central 
or essential spheres of either Natural Science 
or Theology J, but rather on the frontier or 
debatable land between them. The natural- 
ist may, and indeed ought, to regard nature as 
independent of the religious beliefs of men. 
It is his object by his own proper methods to 
ascertain facts and principles, and this without 
being turned from his course by any apparent 
antagonisms with doctrines held to be true on 
other grounds. Without granting hiim this 
freedom, his testimony even in favor of relig- 
ion would be valueless ; and, by attempting 
to deny it to him, he is placed in an attitude 
of opposition to religion. So the Christian, 
reverencing the word of God as something 



14 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

standing altogether above and apart from hu- 
man science, and deahng with the most momen- 
tous interests in a way to which science cannot 
attain, may hold himseK altogether indepen- 
dent of either its aids or oppositions. He may 
either take the simple position of the hymn 
which says, — 

' ' I am not skilled to understand 

What God hath willed, what God hath planned : 
I only know at his right hand 
Stands one who is my Saviour." 

Or, with more full appreciation of the com- 
plexity of the questions involved, he may adopt 
the confession of Guizot : — 

''I believe in God and adore him, without at- 
tempting to comprehend him. I see him present 
and acting not only in the permanent government 
of the universe and in the innermost hfe of men's 
souls, but in the history of human societies, especi- 
ally in the Old and- New Testaments, — monuments 
of the Divine Revelation and action by the media- 
tion and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ for the 
salvation of the human races. I bow before the 
mysteries of the Bible and the gospel, and I hold 
aloof from scientific discussion and solutions b}^ 
which men have attempted to explain them. I 
trust that God permits me to call myself a Chris- 
tian, and I am convinced that in the light which I 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 15 

am about to enter we shall fully discern the purely 
human origm and vanity of most of our dissensions 
here below on divine things." 

The man of science must thus be left un- 
fettered by religious dogma ; and^ on the other 
hand^ the Christian has too sure evidence of 
his faith and hope, to be shaken by any ap- 
parent inconsistencies with science. Practi- 
cally, however, we must not forget that the 
votary of science cannot as a man dispense 
with religion, and that the Christian may im- 
pair his own influence, or injure the cause he 
desires to promote, by want of acquaintance 
with the position of scientific inquiry in his 
day. It is also true that a large mass of per- 
sons who are neither men of science nor Chris- 
tians may be perplexed or seriously injured 
by misunderstandings on this subject. 

Above all, those who aim to be Christian 
teachers should be fully armed to contend for 
the truth, and should have a clear and intelli- 
gent appreciation of the weapons and tactics 
which may be employed against it. They should 
also comprehend the habits of thought of 
specialists in science and their followers, and 
the aspects in which religious truth may pre- 
sent itself to their minds. Further, they should 



16 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

be prepared to take broad views of the rela- 
tions between spiritual and natural things, 
and should have their minds attuned to the 
harmonies which exist in God's revelations of 
himself in nature and in his word. Other- 
wise they must fail to attain to the highest 
usefulness^ or to be worthy expounders of a 
revelation from him who is at once the God 
of nature and of grace. 

There is thus in this debatable ground 
between science and religion a large field of 
profitable study ; and this more especially at 
a time when our literature is filled with crude 
and shallow references to such subjects; and 
when the utterance of views at variance with 
both natural and revealed religion is more 
bold and open than perhaps at any previous 
time. 

As an example of what I mean^ I may take 
an illustration from an address recently deliv- 
ered on a pubhc occasion in a Scottish univer- 
sity, and by a man of some scientific standing. 
He is reported to have said : — 

'^ Clergymen and most religious teachers are 
totally insensible to the errors and discrepancies 
of language tliey use in the pulpit ; so that, when 
the scientific man takes his place in church, he is 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 17 

surprised at the manifest ignorance of established 
truths constantly preached to the people. As a 
simple illustration of this, let me remind you of a 
beautiful hymn with which all of us have been 
acquainted from childhood, and which is still sung 
in our churches. It is the one which commences, 
' The spacious firmament on high ; ' and after refer- 
ring in separate verses to the sun, moon, stars, 
and planets, says, in the fifth verse, — 

* What though in solemn silence, all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball/ &c. 

" But there is no one among this audience whose 
knowledge has not convinced him that, so far from 
the sun and the heavenly bodies moving round the 
earth, or ' terrestrial ball,' the earth and planets in 
fact move round the sun. If Addison, the author 
of this hymn, had consulted a scientific friend, and, 
instead of the ' dark terrestrial,' had substituted 
the ' splendid solar ' ball, the hymn would have 
sung just as well, and would have had the advan- 
tage of being right instead of wrong, would not 
have shocked our convictions of truth, and tended 
to destroy the respect that really educated men 
ought to have for religious instruction." 

At first sight this is trifling enough, but it 
was not a mere random thrust. Addison's 
hymn is one which lias been much esteemed 
by Christians. It is one of five hymns selected 



18 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

by the Presbyterian Church of Scotland to be 
appended to the Psalter, and it is a paraphrase 
or free translation of the 19th Psalm. I take 
it^ therefore^ as an example of a species of 
attack on Christianity which is to be found 
everywhere in our current literature^ and as 
an illustration of points of contact between 
science and the Bible^ and of false and true 
ways of treating them. 

It is not to be denied that there is some 
truth in the accusation of deficient scientific 
accuracy in the pulpit. Illustrations derived 
from science^ and references to scientific dis- 
coveries and opinions^ are often so wide of the 
mark as to provoke a smile or to excite in- 
dignation^ according to the disposition of the 
hearer; and it should be borne in mind that 
the progress of science is so rapid that what 
seemed the most profound learning a few years 
ago^ may to-day be merely an exploded fallacy 
or an obsolete theory. 

Nor is the hymn free from ground of criti- 
cism^ in its assertion that all the heavenly 
orbs move round this ''^ dark terrestrial ball ; " 
but it is curious and instructive that the 
emendation of the scientific critic is equally 
faulty^ for^ though the planets move round 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 19 

the ^^ splendid solar ball/' the stars do not;, — 
a singular exempliJBcation of the difficulty of 
avoiding error even in the most simple scien- 
tific statements^ when these are expressed in 
poetical language^ or used in illustration of 
spiritual truths. 

But what of the old Hebrew poet whose 
production has led to all these difficulties ? 
Did he go astray in his astronomy^ or did he 
avoid altogether the scientific snares amidst 
which it seems he was treading ? We shall 
find that he^ looking altogether at natural 
appearances^ and sublimely ignorant of any 
theory^ has avoided the blunders both of his 
copyist and his critic : — 

** The heavens declare the glory of God ; 
And the expanse proclaimeth his handiwork. 
Day unto day uttereth speech, 
Night unto night showeth knowledge. 

In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 

And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 

His going forth is from the end of the heaven, 

And his circuit unto the end thereof ; 

And there is nothing hid from his heat.'' 

This language is bold and poetical ; but it 
affords no peg whereon to hang any criticism 



20 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

similar to that to which the modern poet has 
subjected himself. 

My notice of this little matter is not a 
digression. It is at once an example of the 
superiority of the Bible to the attacks levelled 
against it^ and of the fact that the friends of 
the Bible needlessly provoke these attacks ; 
and it further raises the question^ What 
have we a right to expect of a divine reve- 
lation in its treatment of nature ? and^ How 
does that treatment stand related to modern 
science ? To the answers to these questions 
I shall devote the remainder of this intro- 
ductory lecture^ and shall discuss : first^ the 
most general aspects in which the Bible is 
related to science ; secondly^ the connection 
between the Bible and science arising from 
the relation of monotheism to our conceptions 
of the unity of nature ; and^ thirdly, the 
connections arising from the ideas of law, 
order, and plan in nature which are common 
to the Bible and to science. 

Relations of Science to Revelation in general. 

Here we may begin with the broad general 
statement that we have no right to expect 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 21 

any direct revelation from God either of 
natural facts or principles^ except in so far as 
these may be necessary to define our relations 
to him ; but natural facts known to men may 
be employed, and indeed must be employed, to 
illustrate the spiritual truths which it is the 
function of revelation to state and enforce. 
The facts and laws of nature are open to 
observation, experiment, calculation, and rea- 
soning, and do not need to be revealed to 
man, though it must be admitted that the 
stimulus given to the human mind by divine 
revelation has been one of the- strongest in- 
centives to the study of nature. A revelation 
of natural laws prematurely — that is, before 
the human mind of itself rises to their compre- 
hension — would be useless or injurious ; and, if 
we could conceive a revelation of a perfect 
science, this would be inaccessible to all but 
a few trained and gifted minds, if, indeed, it 
could be rendered intelligible to them. On 
the other hand, the revelation of a rudimentary 
and imperfect science would be unworthy of 
God, and would require continual correction 
as knowledge advanced. The field of reve- 
lation lies in a different domain, — that of 
spiritual things, — wherein science confesses 



22 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

itself at faulty and admits that it has reached 
the boundaries of the unknowable. Perhaps 
there can be no surer test of a true revelation 
from .God than to ask the question, — Does it 
refuse to commit itself to scientific or philo- 
sophical hypotheses, and does it grasp firmly 
those problems most important to man as a 
spiritual being and insoluble by his unassisted 
reason ? This attitude of non-committal as to 
the method of nature and the secondary causes 
of phenomena is, as we shall see, eminently 
characteristic of the Bible. 

Here we may pause for a moment to con- 
sider an analogy and a difference between 
religion and science in this most general 
aspect. God may be said to reveal science 
to man as well as religion ; but he reveals 
science by raising up gifted minds to interro- 
gate nature and to work out a knowledge of 
her laws. He reveals spiritual truths directly, 
through his own appointed messengers. Both 
kinds of truth emanate from God, and are 
conveyed through human minds. But science 
is the effort of the human intellect to compre- 
hend natural things, while revelation is the 
comprehension of spiritual things poured from 
above into the mind of man. The one is 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 23 

continually changing and enlarging its boun- 
daries : the other remains where it was, until 
a new afflatus of the Divine Spirit comes upon 
man. Science laboriously draws water from 
the deep well of truth. Revelation pours it 
down on the parched earth in showers from 
heaven. 

But, if we inquire more closely , we shall 
find that there are two somewhat dissimilar 
aspects in which the Bible as a revelation from 
God has treated nature, and in which its re- 
lations to science are distinct from each other. 

The Bible frequently refers to natural facts 
as illustrations of spiritual truths, asserting 
thereby an analogy between the natural and 
spiritual worlds, Where it does this, the 
accuracy of its references is remarkable, — 
unexampled in so far as I know in any other 
literature. We are not, however, required to 
assign this accuracy to any direct revelation 
of natural truth to the minds of the writers ; 
since it is, in part at least, explicable by sec- 
ondary causes, which are themselves instructive 
as illustrating the bearing of true notions of 
God on our knowledge of nature. Such sec- 
ondary causes are the following : 1. The 
habits of a people familiar with nature and 



24 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

drawing their images from it rather than 
from art or previous literatm^e. In our arti- 
ficial state of culture^ it is difficult to appreciate 
this condition of the minds of primitive poets 
and rehgious writers. It might be better for 
us if we were to freshen our own minds more 
than we do with similar influences. 2. The 
absence of all tendency to theorize or to frame 
hypotheses^ and the direct reference of all 
effects to the wiU of God. 3. The absence of 
that superstition which makes natural objects 
the basis of mythology^ and connects them 
with imaginary gods and demons. Properly 
speaking, there is no mythology in the Bible, 
because this is excluded by its monotheistic 
theology. 4. The Veneration' for natural truth 
developed among a people who regarded all 
nature as an emanation from the one God. 
The Hebrew could not regard natural objects as 
sacred to particular divinities, but he tliought 
of all things as a material expression of the 
power of God, and therefore as in a sense 
sacred. 

To whatever extent attributable to such 
causes, we find both in the shorter refer- 
ences to nature, and in such larger and more 
elaborate compositions as the concluding chap- 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 25 

ters of Job, a treatment of nature worthy of a 
revelation from God, and whose minute accu- 
racy is constantly being confirmed by the re- 
searches of scientific travellers. 

But there is another point of contact of the 
Bible with nature to which such explanations 
do not apply to the same extent. In the first 
chapter of Genesis we find an obvious attempt 
to give the method of creation, or at least 
its order in time. This narrative of creation 
trenches on the domain of science, and refers 
to matters not open to direct observation. It 
must, therefore, be a revelation from God, or 
a result of scientific induction or philosophical 
speculation, or a mere myth. 

If such a narrative of creation should prove 
so accurate as to stand the test of facts dis- 
covered long after it was written, and of scien- 
tific principles not established or thought of 
at that early time, this would in itself be a 
most powerful proof of its divine origin. On 
the other hand, if it commits itself to false 
statements, it has stamped its origin as human, 
and will so far sink to the level of many 
other ancient books of obsolete science and 
philosophy. On this point, as we shall see in 
the sequel, recent investigations have left no 



26 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

room for doubt. The order of creation as 
stated in Genesis is faultless in the light of 
modern science, and many of its details pre- 
sent the most remarkable agreement with the 
results of sciences born only in our own day. 
As examples, I may mention the distinction 
.between the origin of light and of luminaries, 
the origination of the first animals from the 
waters, and the creation of the higher land 
animals and man on one creative day. These 
and many other features could scarcely have 
occurred to the unassisted thought of a writer 
of so great antiquity. This is a severe test 
for the Bible, — one from which many of its 
friends seem to shrink ; but we shall see in 
the sequel how it endures it, and why it was 
necessary that it should be subjected to it. 
In the mean time I wish to enforce the im- 
portant principle that, with respect to the his- 
tory of creation and the subsequent references 
to it, we cannot rest in the general statement 
that the Bible is not intended to teach science, 
any more than we can excuse inaccuracy as to 
historical facts by the notion that the Bible 
was not intended to teach history. 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 27 

Monotheism and the Unity of Nature, 

The Word of God^, as the revelation of the 
one God, the Creator, has some special and 
direct relations with nature, arising not only 
out of its own monotheistic position, but out 
of the errors and superstitions of ancient relig- 
ions, and the constant tendency of humanity 
to fall back upon secondary divinities. 

One of these arises from the worship of 
natural objects, or of spirits supposed to haunt 
or to be connected with them, which prevailed 
in heathen antiquity, and still exists so largely 
among barbarous and semi-civilized nations. 
When men have lost or are losing the knowl- 
edge of the true God, and are not enlightened 
by the ideas of causation which spring from 
science, they are naturally affected with a 
superstitious dread of the powers of nature, 
whether apparently injurious or beneficial to 
them. Hence the thunder-storm, the tornado, 
the volcano, the sun, the moon, and the great 
river, become gods or symbols of gods; and 
this may proceed to other idolatries of animals 
or of deified men. Thus, from mere supersti- 
tion may arise a systematized polytheism, 
which in every stage of growth or decay is 



28 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

subversive of all high religious aims^ and 
reduces man below the level of the things and 
forces of which he was intended to be the 
lord and master ; while it shuts out from him 
the higher glories of the true God^ and the 
higher spiritual ends of his own being. Prom 
this state it was necessary for revelation to 
raise man. Hence we find the great Hebrew 
law-giver, in the beginning of Genesis, grasp- 
ing the whole material of heathen idolatry, 
whether in the heavens above or the earth 
beneath; and bringing it within the compass 
of his monotheistic theology ; and this testi- 
mony to the unity of nature pervades the 
whole of the Bible. Hence, also, he places 
man on the throne of creation, as its lord 
under God, and lays beneath his feet all the 
created things which the blinded nations wor- 
ship. 

This one vindication of God and man from 
the debasing thraldom of suj)erstition is a vast 
achievement of revelation ; and when w^e con- 
sider the prevalence of idolatry wherever the 
Bible is unknown, even in our own time, and 
the tendency even of cultivated men to fall 
into fetichism, gross materialism, or pantheism, 
we cannot be too thankful for this great hber- 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 29 

ation acliieved by the Bible for all who will 
believe in it as a revelation from God. Even 
science has a right here to express its obliga- 
tions to the Bible ; for^ had this not already 
taught the unity and uniformity of nature^ it 
is doubtful if we would yet have emerged 
from the crudities of Greek philosophy^ or 
Avould have achieved many of the great scien- 
tific triumphs of modern times. 

Another aspect of a monotheistic revelation 
is its obligation to hold God responsible for all 
nature. It cannot^ like the superstition of the 
heathen^ relegate the destructive and carnivo- 
rous animals^ the storm^ the earthquake^ or the 
volcano^ to the dominion of malignant demons. 
These terrible agencies^, as well as the benefi- 
cent light and heat and gentle rain^ must be 
the works of the good God. Science itself 
has in modern times relieved us from some 
part of this difficulty ; but when we consider 
how hard it was for the wisest minds of hea- 
then antiquity to advance so far, and when 
we find even our modern philosopher^ John 
Stuart Mill, avowing that the apparent evil in 
nature and in man's estate seemed to him too 
great to permit him to believe in a God at 
once beneficent and omnipotent, we can bet- 



30 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

ter appreciate the boldness of the stand in 
favor of unity taken by the Scriptures^ when 
in the first chapter of Genesis, and before the 
fall of man, they affirm that ih^ darkness and 
the light, the water and the land, the fierce 
tanninim and the harmless cattle, are alike 
the workmanship of the same Almighty hand. 
Yet we can see that no other course was con- 
sistent with a monotheistic theology, and that 
this alone could fully rescue man from the 
abject superstition which bows before the 
malicious or capricious unknown. We shall 
have to return to this question of apparent 
evil in nature ; but in the mean time the treat- 
ment of it in the Bible presents itself as a 
remarkable instance of adherence to the unity 
of the cosmos. 

Law^ Order^ Use^ and Plan in Nature and the 

Bible. 

The monotheism of the Bible logically re- 
quires that it shall hold to uniformity in the 
operations of God, to order and progress in 
his works, to a regard to use and purpose, 
and to a definite plan in all his procedure. 
These great principles, always distinctly main-^ 
tained in Holy Scripture, have been still more 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 31 

prominently brought before the minds of 
men by the growth of modern science, and 
estabhsh some very interesting and important 
points of contact. 

1. The Bible is at one with science in 
affirming the constancy of natural law. God 
has made " a decree for the rain^ and a way 
for the lightning." He has enacted the ^^or- 
dinances of heaven." " He hath established 
the heavens for ever. He hath made a decree 
which shall not pass." The uniformity of 
nature as under natural law, expressing the 
will of -the unchangeable Creator, is as certain 
a dogma of Scripture as it is a result of sci- 
ence. If the Creator is perfect, his action must 
be uniform : any thing else would be unworthy 
of him. The extremest materialist can claim 
nothing for natural law which the Bible does 
not claim for the will that changes not, the 
power that ^^fainteth not, neither is weary." "^ 
Nor can even the pantheist claim any closer 
indwelling in nature for his mechanical all- 
pervading essence than the Bible claims for 
its personal God. 

The Bible, it is true, is anthropomorphic in 
its mode of speaking of God, and necessarily 

* Isa. xl. 28. 



32 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

so^ — for it must speak in the tongues and to 
the hearts of men^ - — but avoids the attribution 
of caprice and changef ulness to him^ as much as, 
on the other hand, it avoids the other extreme 
of converting him into a mere inexorable and 
mechanical fate. 

But what shall we say of miracle and of 
prayer ? Simply this, that the Bible as a 
revelation from God takes, and must take, a 
broader ground here than that of the sceptic. 
Even the materialist must admit that practi- 
cally he exists in the midst of miracles, or of 
processes that he can by no means either fully 
account for or control. He often finds him- 
self in the presence of difficulties which he 
cannot surmount, and the overcoming of which 
would seem to him miraculous. Yet he knows 
that, with more knowledge and power, he could 
overcome them, and this without contravening 
natural laws. If he is aware of any specialist 
who knows more than he does of those things 
which he cannot master, he naturally applies 
to him for aid or counsel. He knows very 
well that if there exists any chief engineer of 
the universe, who knows all its powers and 
properties, such a person could work miracles 
without end, by new correlations of forces 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 83 

and matter; and if we could have access to 
such a person J he might instruct us and help 
ns to do almost any thing with matter and 
force. Therefore every man who believes in 
matter and force and natural law must logi- 
cally believe in the possibility of miracle and 
the efficacy of prayer^ provided that there is 
an architect of the universe, and that we can 
obtain access to him. 

Bible miracles do not involve the suspen- 
sion of natural laws^ but only arrangements 
under these laws, or the operation of unknown 
laws ; which, however, may be as inexplicable 
to us as if thev were contraventions of law. 
Prayer, in the Scriptural sense of it, is an 
appeal to One whose knowledge of and power 
over his own works are capable of effecting re- 
sults to us not only impossible, but inconceiv- 
able. In maintaining the possibility of mira- 
cle and the power of prayer, along with the 
unchangeable law of God, the Bible is thus on 
higher scientific ground than that of any of 
those who call these in question. 

An idea seems prevalent both among scien- 
tific and unscientific persons, that there is 
something derogatory to God in limiting his 
power by natural law, and that every clfect 



34 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

explained by a natural cause removes the 
influence of God further back^ until at last, 
by the reference of all things to law^ he 
shall be quite eliminated from the universe. 
Whether we look at this notion from the point 
of view of science or of Scripture^ it is equally 
absurd. Law is nothing in itself. It merely 
expresses the uniform exercise of some force 
or power^ and if God is the source of the 
power, then the operation of the law is merely 
his uniform operation. We may indeed speak 
of the law as a voluntary limitation of God's 
power in a certain direction, just as a mon- 
arch may define or limit his own power by 
a law ; but so long as the law continues in 
force, it is his power that acts by it, just as 
much as if he were acting without law. This 
crude idea reminds one of a story which He- 
rodotus relates, to the effect that the EgjqD- 
tians informed him that they were less in the 
power of the gods than the Greeks,^ because 
they depended for the fertility of their lands 
not on the cajDricious rains, but on the annual 
inundation of the Nile. A little more science 
would have informed them that the rise of the 

* Perhaps they meant merely the aetherial or weather gods. 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE, 35 

Nile was itself dependent on the rains of 
interior Africa. 

2. The Bible holds with science the doctrine 
of progress and development in nature. This 
is implied in the grand march of the creative 
w^ork in Genesis, perfecting first the arrange- 
ments of inorganic nature, and then those of 
the organic world, and in the latter beginning 
with plants and ending with man. It is true 
that the Bible carries this farther in both 
directions than scientific facts can yet do. It 
goes back to a ^^ beginning," before any of the 
present arrangements of the earth were per- 
fected. It treats of an arrested development 
by the fall of man, of a failure on his part 
to enter into the intended sabbatism of the 
Creator, of a world groaning under this 
arrested development, of a future new cre- 
ation when all things shall be restored. 

On this idea of progress, it bases in the. 
main its solution of the difficulty, insoluble to 
the gloomy philosophy of Mill, arising from 
the apparent evils of the past and present 
states of the world. We know but in part. 
God alone knows the end from the beginning. 
His plan is not to be understood from a little 
part of it, and this marred to us by the 



'36 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

aberrations of sin. Nor are the designs of 
God to be judged altogether by the criterion 
of human advantage^ as understood by us^ any 
more than from the facts percej)tible at one 
point of view. Here again the Bible evidently 
scans the fields of nature and man from a 
higher stand-point than that of its critics. 

Farther^ it is to be observed that this idea 
of progress, all along held by the Bible^ has 
only recently been ]3^^^^i^^d by science. 
The first tendency of the great physical dis- 
coveries of this and the last century was to 
lead to the notion of an unvaried and unendino; 
succession. Only since the rise and growth 
of geology and physical astronomy^ has the 
idea of continued change and progress fixed 
itself on the minds of men. Now wx know 
that in no day is our earth precisely in the 
same state in which it was in the day before, 
that this has been its case throughout all 
geological time, and that the same law prob- 
ably applies to all the heavenly bodies. 

Science has, it is true, with the zeal of a 
new convert, been led farther in one direction 
than the Bible can go ; and, under the guid- 
ance of certain philosophical speculations, has 
come to think that there is some necessary 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 37 

tendency in all things to improve, or at least 
to proceed from the homogeneous and indefi- 
nite to the heterogeneous and definite, a prog- 
ress which, however, implies a beginning and 
a finite consummation, and therefore a God ; 
but which, in the bare, bald sense in which it 
is presented by the Spencerian evolutionists, 
is no better philosophy than that which we 
may suppose to be held by a minnow dwelling 
in a reach of the Hudson, that all things inev- 
itably and eternally flow toward the sun. 

3. A further point of accordance between the 
Bible and science is in the affirmation on the 
part of the former of use and adaptation in nat- 
ure, in connection with the ideas of design 
and final cause. The supposition of an all- 
wise Creator involves this ; and science has 
so keenly perceived the necessity for it, in 
its subordinate forms, that our most popular 
hypothesis of the origin of species deifies use, 
in the narrow sense in which it applies to the 
individual, under the name of natural selection, 
and makes it the creator of all things, while, 
with singular blindness as to the possibility of 
higher uses, it denies the evidence for design. 

The teleology of the Bible is very clear and 
definite, and it may be well to compare it 



88 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

more minutely with that which we can learn 
from nature. The first and highest aim in 
creation is the satisfaction of the Creator : 
"' God saWj and it was good." This is a point 
of teleology to which science does not often 
soar. It approaches it when it speaks of ab- 
stract beauty and fitness being ends. When 
Darwin^ perhaps not wisely^ asserted that the 
production of any structure for the purpose of 
beauty alone would^ if proved^ be fatal to his 
theory^ he unwittingly placed himself in direct 
antagonism to the Bible, and he was obliged 
subseqaently to modify his views on this point. 
But the instinct of beauty is too strong in 
man to allow scientific students generally to 
fall into this error. Strauss^ who, though he 
could get rid of God, could not remove from 
his mind the idea of cosmical beauty and 
fitness, strove to embody it in his pantheistic 
conception of the Cosmos, — the All, existing 
in and for itself eternally ; which is, after all, 
nothing but a vague generalized statement 
of the truth now before us. 

A second object in nature is the good of 
man, who is the " shadow and image " of his 
Maker, and has dominion over the lower world. 
In science a like conclusion may be drawn 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 89 

from the fact that man is the archetype of the 
animal creation, the highest manifestation of 
life, and that he enjoys a power of ruling and 
using nature by virtue of his reason ; while he 
can also feel and enjoy natural beauty and 
fitness. Merely natural science, however, can- 
not reach to the full concejotion of the Bible 
on this point, because it has not before it the 
idea of this world as a place of training and 
culture for the spiritual and immortal nature of 
man, and of manifestation to him of the attri- 
butes of his Maker. 

A third end recoo;nized in the Bible is the 
welfare and happiness of all the lower animals. 
He listens to the young ravens when they cry, 
and provides for the sparrows, while he feeds 
all the '' creeping things innumerable " of the 
great and wide sea. This also science must 
recognize, not only because of the wonderful 
and complicated adaptations of all parts of 
nature to each other, but because of those 
vast geological periods in which the earth was 
tenanted by the lower animals alone. 

Of course if natural science can get rid alto- 
gether of the idea of design in nature, it may 
regard all these uses as mere results of some 
inevitable tendency in things to adaj^t them- 



40 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

selves to each other. But science cannot get 
rid of design, which, as even Mill came in his 
later days to admits rests on an inductive 
basis^ and in this respect takes a higher place 
than any theory of evolution. So long, indeed, 
as the human mind retains its present consti- 
tution, it cannot rid itself from the. belief that 
the complex adjustments seen everywhere in 
nature imply an intelligent contriver. It may 
be noted here, as a remarkable coincidence, 
that, when Mill in his essay on Theism states 
that the argument from design is the only 
one valid to his mind as a proof of the exist- 
ence of a God, he returns in this precisely to 
the ground taken by Paul in the Epistle to 
the Romans, when he says, " From the crea- 
tion of the world God's invisible things, even 
his eternal power and divinity, are plainly 
seen, being perceived by means of the things 
that he hath made." 

4. The Bible recognizes type or plan in 
nature. It brings out the likeness of man, as 
the archetype, to God on the one hand, and to 
behemoth, who was made with him, on the 
other. It holds to plan and continued purpose 
as pervading all nature, and it is full of the 
harmonies which obtain between natural and 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 41 

spiritual things^ and thus it links all things to 
each other and to their plan in the divine 
mind. Dr. McCosh has noticed^ in this con- 
nection, in his " Typical Forms and Special 
Ends/' the remarkable passage on this sub- 
ject in Psalm 139th : — 

*' My substance was not hid from thee, 
When I was made in secret, 

And curiously wrought in the depths of the earth. 
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect ; 
And in thy book all my members were written ; 
Day by day were they fashioned, when there were none of 
them.?' 

Perhaps it might too much tax the faith of 
scientific men^ to ask them to admit that the 
writer had before his mind the prototypes of 
man which geology has recovered from the 
rocks of the earth. No objection need^ how- 
ever, be taken to our reading in it the doc- 
trine of embryonic development according to 
a systematic type. 

This idea of plan is equally manifest to sci- 
ence, though one great school of scientific men 
is in our time disposed to regard it from the op- 
posite point of view to that taken by Scripture, 
and to infer, from likeness of plan, merely a 
genetic connection or spontaneous derivation 
of things. This mode of viewing nature 



42 GENERAL RELATIONS OF 

serves very well to explain hypothetically 
most parts of its plan ; but it has no proof 
other than a series of uncertain analogies, and 
it fails to suj)ply any adequate power to initi- 
ate and carry on the series of changes required. 

This, however, we have to consider in the 
sequel ; and in the mean time may content 
ourselves with affirming that the Bible occu- 
pies here at least a consistent and logical 
position. Taking its stand on the divine will 
and power, it holds that these act by law or 
in a definite and uniform way, with unerring 
prescience, and with a perfect mastery of all 
natural forces, and that we thus have, carried 
out through all the ages, a continuous and 
consistent plan, whose completion is still in the 
future. 

In concluding our survey of law, order, use, 
and plan, it may be well to notice the sense 
often attached to the term divine "interven- 
tion," as if the Bible theism required that God 
should, like a human artificer, frequently in- 
terfere to repair or put right certain portions 
of his work. This notion is really foreign 
from the theism of ScrijDture, which holds 
that God is always present in his work, and 
that all his work is perfect, whether we can 



SCIENCE TO THE BIBLE. 43 

see this or not. It does recognize a difference 
between his original acts of creation, and his 
continuance of what he has created under the 
laws of its being, —a difference which we at 
once perceive must exist, on any theory of 
theism ; though we may not be able to define 
its nature. It also recognizes a special Avork 
of God in connection with the redemption of 
man ; and the revelation of himself, and of 
the Divine Word in connection with this, is 
perhaps the only part of his procedure to 
which the term " intervention " can properly 
apply, and this not in the offensive sense of an 
absent God returning to patch or interfere 
with his previous work. 

In this opening lecture, I have dwelt on 
general features of the relations of the Bible 
to science. I must now proceed to show 
more in detail that the Bible is true to nature. 
In doing so, I cannot enter into all the topics 
involved, but must select such as seem to be 
most important in meeting the difficulties and 
misapprehensions at present prevalent. 



LECTURE II. 

BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE AS A 

WHOLE. 



LECTURE II. 

BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE UNIVERSE AS A 

WHOLE. 



The Heavens. — Atmospheric Heaven or Expanse. — • 
Sidereal and Planetary Heaven. — Third or 
Spiritual Heaven. 

TT is possible that there may be a condition 
of humanity in which the lord of creation 
so far resembles the lower animals that his 
mental vision is limited to the little space of 
earth he inhabits^ and" his immediate interests 
therein. It is certain^ however^ that even the 
rudest tribes of men^ as known to us^ have 
learned to lift their eyes to the heavens and 
to give names to the more prominent bodies 
and groups of bodies that meet their view, and 
even to see something of divinity in these 
great orbs ; while in the apparently limitless 
depths of heaven, and in the ceaseless round 
of day and night, and summer and winter, 
and in the vicissitudes of storm and calm, and 
the occasional appearance of comets and me- 



48 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

teors^ they have been impressed with feehngs 
of awe and reverence deepening often into 
superstition. Nor has science emancipated its 
followers from such feelings. The astronomer 
who has weighed the heavenly^ bodies, and 
gauged their distances, and examined their 
sj)ectra, stands after all appalled by their in- 
conceivable grandeur and vastness, and com- 
plicated mutual relations. Nor can he easily 
banish from his mind the idea of an intelligent 
contriver of motions which have exhausted 
his powers of calculation in endeavoring to 
discover their laws. 

What, then, is the relation of the Bible to 
this wondrous spectacle of the heavens ? Does 
it fail to perceive its significance ? Does it 
with the heathen bow down and worship the 
host of heaven ? Does it weave the heaA^enly 
orbs into a fantastic or beautiful dream of 
poetical mythology ? Or does it with the 
scientific materialist see nothing but dead 
forces and star-dust? 

Its answer is contained in its opening sen- 
tence, ^^In the beginning God created the 
heavens and the earth." So its first word is 
of the material universe. The first article in 
the creed of ins23iration relates to physical 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE. 49 

nature. Surely tlie importance of the outer 
physical world is here sufficiently recognized, 
— the heavens first and the earth next. But 
the business of the Bible with the heavens is 
special. First, it tells us that they are not 
eternal and self-existent. They date from an 
unknown period in the depths of past time, — 
the beginning, — when even they had an ori- 
gin in the counsels and power of the Eternal. 
They were created, the word implying the 
most absolute kind of production by almighty 
power."^ The Creator is God, or in the plural 
" Gods " (Elohim), as including those manifes- 
tations of divinity, immediately after men- 
tioned, in his Word and Spirit ; or as inclusive 
of all true Godhead in the one God, the 
Creator ; and thus leaving no room to the 
polytheist to ask, '' Which of the gods 
created the heavens and the earth ? '' 

The Bible thus in its first verse grasps the 
whole universe in two comprehensive words, 
and lays it at the feet of the Almighty as its 
Creator. It thus purposely cuts itself loose 
from mythology and superstition on the one 
hand, and from materialism and atheism on 
the other, and defines its position in regard to 

* This is discussed in " Arcliaia/' pp. 61 et seq. 
4 



50 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

nature as that of rational theism. Nothing 
could be more clear than this ; and if we are 
content to receive it as the only solution of 
the ultimate mystery of the origin of things^ 
— the only answer to that " infinite note of 
interrogation " which meets us at the end of 
all lines of research^ — it forms a broad and 
satisfactory basis for religion^ and a final goal 
for science. Let us next inquire how the Bible 
carries out this grand statement into detail, 
and this will lead us in the first instance 
to consider the Biblical classification of the 
heavens. 

In the Bible all the depths of space beyond 
the surface of the earth are designated by 
the general term '' heavens " (shamayim)^ the 
heights, or the things which are high. The 
heavens are again subdivided into three great 
regions : the first or atmospheric heaven, — 
the expanse ; the second or astronomical 
heaven, including the planets and stars ; and 
the third or highest heaven, the unseen 
abode of God's special presence, and of higher 
spiritual intelligences. 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 61 

The Atmospheric Heaven. 

This is introduced to us for the first time in 
Genesis^ chap, i. verse 6 : " And God said^ Let 
there be an expanse in the midst of the 
waters ; " that is^ to separate the waters of 
the clouds above from those of the then uni- 
versal ocean beneath. This expanse, we are 
expressly told^ '' God called heaven/' thus 
including it, for purposes of popular classifica- 
tion, with the abysses of space without, rather 
than with the earth within. 

It is unfortunate that the early Greek trans- 
lators adopted — perhaps in deference to the 
opinions of their time — the word stereoma, 
a solid, as the translation of the Hebrew 
raJciah^ expanse or expanded thing, and 
that this error has been continued in our 
translation by the word ^^ firmament." We 
may, however, receive it with Milton's expla- 
nation, which, while recognizing the word fir- 
mament, defines its true meaning : — 

*' The Firmament, expanse of liquid, 
Pure, transparent, elemental air, 
Diffused in circuit to the uttermost convex 
Of this great round." 

The statements in Genesis respecting the 
expanse suppose a previous couditiou of the 



52 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

earthy in which it was encompassed with a 
cloudy^ vaj)orous mantle^ stretching continu- 
ouslj upward from the ocean^ and not divided 
by the film of clear transparent air^ which in 
all but a few exceptional cases now separates 
the clouds above from the sea below. Such a 
condition probably antedates geological time ; 
yet it is not unknown to scientific theory. If^ 
as seems probable, the earth was once in an 
intensely heated state, a time would come, in 
the process of cooling, when a heated ocean 
would send up abundant vapors, producing a 
perpetual mist or fog to be constantly con- 
densed, by the cold of space without, into 
continual rains. The change from this to the 
present state of the earth would introduce 
that nice and delicate balancing of evapora- 
tion under the influence of the sun, and con- 
densation from the radiation of heat into 
space and the mixture of air at various tem- 
peratures, which now gives us the stratum of 
air in which we live and move, the beauty of 
the azure sky and its floating clouds, and the 
regulated supply of fertilizing rain. The 
Bible does not enter into any details on the 
subject, nor is it necessary for us to do so, 
any farther than to say that they form the 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 63 

subject of the science of meteorology, one 
of the most complicated of scientific studies, 
and not yet well understood even in its more 
general laws ; and that practically they provide 
for the possible subsistence of the higher ani- 
mals and plants of the land. 

However little w^e may have thought of this 
subject J every one must admit that the insti- 
tution of the laws and arrangements of our 
atmosphere merited as a physical fact some 
notice in the history of creation. Still more 
did it require notice from a theological point 
of view, since, of all the objects of idolatry 
which have competed with a pure theology, 
none have occupied a larger place in the 
minds of men than cloud-compelling Zeus, and 
the other ether gods of antiquity, whose 
function Moses completely takes away when 
he refers the atmosphere and all its phenom- 
ena to the fiat of the one God, Maker of 
heaven and earth. Nor need we suppose 
that the " waters above the heavens " are 
relatively too small to deserve special notice. 
The quantity of water suspended in the atmos- 
phere is enormous ; and the rains, the springs, 
and rivers which fertilize the earth and sustain 
its inhabitants, are only the overflowings of 



64 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

this vast aerial reservoir^ upheld by the laws 
established by God. 

It would be remarkable, were it not that the 
frequency of such things makes us familiar 
with them, that the most absurd misrepresen- 
tations of the Biblical expanse are current in 
literature, and even in the works of men who 
believe in and reverence the Scriptures. 

In Smith's Bible Dictionary for instance, in 
an article on Heaven over the initials of an 
eminent English scholar, but which may be 
affirmed to contain as many inaccuracies, scien- 
tific and scriptural, as could well be compressed 
into the space it occupies, we find it stated 
that it is clear that- Moses meant a " solid 
expanse," " a firm vault," supported " on 
the mountains as pillars;" and in a popular 
book on " Myths," by a gentleman of some 
reputation in America, I find the quaint and 
ridiculous translation, — not, however, alto- 
gether original, — " And, said the Gods, let 
there be a hammered plate in the midst of the 
waters." The existence of such notions war- 
rants a httle inquiry as to the precise state of 
the case, — inquiry which might otherwise 
appear a needless waste of time and an insult 
to your intelligence. 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE. 65 

That the idea of extension rather than of 
fixity is conveyed by the Hebrew term, is im- 
phed in the frequent use of such expressions 
as the '' stretching out '' of the aerial heaven, 
and the comparison of it to the curtain of a 
tent. In connection with this, and in itself a 
beautiful conception taken from the motions 
of the clouds, is the New Testament figure of 
the " rolling up of the heaven as a scroll." 
Nor is the idea of any secondary machinery, 
like that of a solid vault, at all congenial to the 
spirit of the Scripture treatment of nature, 
which refers all things directly to the will of 
God. Further, this idea, however it may have 
been applied by the philosophers of antiquity 
to the explanation of the starry heavens, 
could not commend itself to men familiar with 
nature, or indeed to any man who had ever 
seen a cloud form upon a mountain's brow or 
discharge itself in rain. 

Tlie expressions of Scripture which have 
been quoted in support of this fancy are, 
indeed, either mere poetical figures, having 
no such significance, or refer to something 
different from the atmospheric firmament. 
Of the first class are the followhi^: : " He 
bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and 



56 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

the cloud is not rent under theni^^ a thought 
which has much natural truths as referring to 
the weight of the atmospheric waters. So, in 
like manner, the mountains are the '' pillars of 
heaven/' as holding the atmospheric waters 
on their cloud-capped summits. So also the 
sudden descent of the thunder-storm or the 
water-spout is the " emptying of the bottles of 
heaven" or the opening of its hatches or 
^^ windows/' while the gentle rains are said 
with equal truth to '^ distil " upon the earth. 
These are all expressive figures, dealing with 
the natural appearances of things, and imply- 
ing no theory as to the constitution or laws of 
the atmosphere. 

Of the second class is that remari^able vision 
of Moses, t wdierein he sees God sitting on a 
pavement of sapphire, and compares this to 
the heaven in its transparency, a thought 
which has as little to do with the idea of 
solidity as any poetical figure relating to 
heaven's azure vault has among ourselves. 
When Ezekiel speaks, in connection with 
heaven, of the " terrible crystal," his words 
should be rendered the " terrible hail " or 
ice of heaven ; and when Job compares the 

* Job xxvi 8. t Ex. xxiv. 10. 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE. 57 

" sky/' not the expanse, to a molten mirror, 
the connection shows that he refers to the 
briUiant tints reflected from the sunHt clouds. 
We need not, however, remain on the defen- 
sive in this matter ; but may assert, on behalf 
of the inspired writers, an accurate perception 
of the true relations of the earth and its atmos- 
phere. Take for example an extract from 
that *^^hymn of creation" the 104th Psalm, 
which gives a poetical version of the first 
chapter of Genesis, and may be regarded as 
the earliest of all commentaries on that chap- 
ter : — 

*' Who stretcheth out the heavens like a curtain: 
Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: 
Who maketh the clouds his chariots, 
And walketh upon the wings of the wind.'' 

The waters here are those above the firma- 
ment, the whole of this part of the psalm being 
occupied with the heavens; but there is no 
room left for the solid firmament, of which 
the writer plainl}^ knew nothing. He repre- 
sents God as laying his chambers on the waters, 
instead of on the supposed firmament, and as 
careering in cloudy chariots not over a solid 
arch, but borne on the wings of the wind. It 
is obvious from this that the writer of this 



58 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

beautiful psalm did not understand Moses in 
the manner in Avhich he is interpreted by some 
of the moderns. 

Or let us refer to the magnificent descrip- 
tion of meteorological phenomena in the 36th 
chapter of Job^ which perhaps, in the beauty 
of its many references to the atmosphere, ex- 
cels any other composition : — 

*' For he draweth up the drops of water; 
Kam is condensed from his vapor, 
Which the clouds do drop 
And distil upon man abundantly. 

Yea can any understand the distribution of the clouds 
Or the thundering of his tent.* 

Out of the south cometh the whirlwind, 
And cold out of the north. 
By the breath of God the frost is produced, 
And the breadth of the waters is straitened ; 
With moisture he loads the dense cloud. 
And spreadeth the clouds of his lightning. 

Dost thou know how God disposes these things, 
And the lightning of his cloud flashes forth ? 
Dost thou know the poising of the clouds, 
The wonderful works of the Perfect in Knowledge." 

This is the same poem from which the 
d(^scription of the clouds^ as resembling a mir- 
ror, has been already quoted • and it will be 

* " His pavilion round about him was dark waters and thick 
clouds" (Fs. xviii.) explains this expression. 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE. 69 

seen that it contemplates no atmospheric dome, 
but on the contrary speaks of the poising or 
suspension of the clouds as inscrutable. So 
also God is elsewhere said to have " estab- 
lished the clouds above/' '^ and to have " bal- 
anced the clouds/' t not by a sohd substratum, 
but by his unchanging decree. 

The attempt, in short, to fix upon the Bible 
the idea of a solid atmospheric vault is alto- 
gether gratuitous, as well as abhorrent from 
the general tenor of Holy Writ ; and I may add 
that the expression, " God called the expanse 
heaven," is in itself a vindication of this con- 
clusion, as implying that no barrier separates 
our film of atmosphere from the boundless 
abyss of heaven without. 

In very special connection with this subject 
is the question referred to in the previous 
lecture, as to the efficacy of prayer. "It is 
useless to pray for rain, since that is under the 
control of physical laws," is the doctrine of a 
noted physicist of our time. " Elijah prayed 
to God, and it rained not for three years and 
six months, and he prayed again and the 
heaven gave rain/' is the counter statement 
of Scripture. Which is the more truthful or 

* Prov. viii. 28. t Job xxxvii. 16. 



60 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

scientific statement, or is there some truth in 
both ? The Bible takes quite as strong ground 
as the physicist on the side of law. The 
weather is not with it a matter of chance, or 
the sport of capricious demons. God arranged 
it all far back in the work of creation. His 
laws are impartial also ; for he sends his rain 
on the evil ^ and the good. But the Bible 
knows a Law-giver beyond the law, and one 
wdio sympathizes with the spiritual condition 
of his people, and can so, in the complex ad- 
justments of his work, order the times and 
seasons as to correlate fruitful seasons or 
drought and barrenness with their obedience 
or their backsliding. That there is nothing 
unscientific in this a very little thought may 
show us. Let us take the case of Elijah's 
prayer. The worship of Baal was not quite 
so silly as at first we may think, even in the 
case of astute and practical people like the 
old Phoenicians and the Israelites. He was the 
sun god, and the study of nature shows us 
that the sun is the great source of physical 
energy to this world. In a physical sense, all 
things may be said to live in him and to be 
animated by his power. To thoughtful men, 
knowing no higher power, and yet retaining 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 61 

some religious feeling, he was almost of neces- 
sity the chief God. Yet Elijah^ standing on 
Mount Carmel^ could deride the priests of Baal 
when from morning to evening they called 
upon the sun and there was no answer. He 
could do thisj because he knew that the sun 
was merely a creature subject to physical law. 
Had Professor Tyndall been present on Mount 
Carmel, his view would have been thus far 
precisely the same ; and he^ as little as Elijah, 
would have joined the priests hi their frantic 
leaping around their altar and cutting them- 
selves with knives. But had he now turned 
to the prophet and said : " You see it is useless 
to pray for rain/' Elijah could have answered, 
" True it is useless to pray to the sun, for he 
is the slave of inexorable law ; but as you do 
not deny that there may be a God who enacted 
the law, and as this God, being everywhere, 
can have access to the spirits of men, it may 
be quite possible for God so to correlate the 
myriad adjustments which determine whether 
the rain shall fall on any particular place at 
any particular time, that the fact shall coincide 
with his spiritual relations to his people. 
Further, it does not matter in the least how 
closely all these natural phenomena are bound 



62 ' BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

toj^ether bv links of cause and effect, because 
this chain of causation must have had a begin- 
ning, and to God who knows the end from the 
beginning, and to whom the past and the future 
are both ahke present, it is the same to arrange 
these correlations to-day or in the beginning 
of time. Therefore, if you cannot deny that 
there is a God, and if you must admit that 
such a God cannot be debarred from inter- 
course with the souls he has made, the science 
of nature, which merely makes known in part 
certain modes of God's operation, can bear 
no true testimony against the efficacy of 
prayer addressed to him." Thus it may be 
quite true that it is useless to pray if we know 
no power above physical laws and material 
objects, and it would be most absurd to pray 
to these ; but, if we have access to the mind 
that made and rules all these things, who can 
tell what answers we may evoke ? 

There is nothing therefore in science, any 
more than in Scripture, to interpose a vault of 
brass between us and the higher heaven. But 
we may go even further than this, and affirm 
that there are some analogical indications af- 
forded by science of a present God, and of the 
possibility of access to him. Not long ago, ap- 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 63 

parently impassable gulfs intervened between 
the great forces of nature^ now we begin to 
see that they may be one in essence, and so 
convertible into each other that the most 
strange and nnlooked-for mutations may arise. 
What if they should all be ultimately resolv- 
able into the will of God ? and may not man 
by his will and spirit, as well as by his reason, 
share in the resources of omnipotence ? Moses 
long ago included all the great forces of nature, 
except gravitation, in the one Hebrew word 
or^^ translated ^^ light" in our version, and 
attributed them to the Almighty fiat 5 and, if 
modern science arrives at the same conclusion 
as to the unity of these forces, it need not 
quarrel with his conclusion as to their source. 
Farther, the inventions which science has 
made, giving to man mastery over these same 
forces, should render us more humble in limit- 
ing the possibilities of intercourse between 
man and God. We can fancy the scorn with 
which a philosopher of the time of Hume 
would have treated the madman who should 
affirm, contrary to experience and probability, 
that he could stand in an office in London and 
dictate instantaneous commands to his agents 

* Allied in derivat'on to the Greek alOiip. 



64 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

in America or China ; yet relatively a small 
amount of additional knowledge, attained by 
a few electricians, has rendered this miracle 
familiar to the ordinary business man, who 
knows nothing of the laws of electricity. Such 
things, while they are glories of practical sci- 
ence^ should make it humble in affirming or 
denying possibilities beyond its ken*. 

The Planetary and Sidereal Heavens. 

Leaving the first or atmospheric heaven, let 
us ascend to that of the planets and stars. 
This is included in the general term " heavens " 
in the first verse of Genesis ; but the arrange- 
ments of the heavenly bodies in their relation 
to our earth are not specified till the fourth 
creative day, whereas light and its allied 
forces were the work of the first day. This 
distinction between light and luminaries is 
another point on which Moses anticipates 
science. On any physical hypothesis of the 
formation of the universe, whether the nebular 
hypothesis of Laplace or the modifications of 
it which have been more recently proposed, 
there ought to have been diffused light first, 
and the aggregation of this about the central 
luminary as a subsequent process; and the 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE. 65 

enormous lapse of time implied in this plij^sical 
perfecting of our system is well shadowed forth, 
in its being finished only on the fourth of the 
six creative seons. 

Three points with reference to the astro- 
nomical heaven, noted in Scripture, and which 
are still its most striking features, are, — its 
vastness, the number of its orbs, and the 
mighty power implied in their mass and 
movements. When the writer of the 8th 
Psalm considers the heavens, he says, " What 
is man that thou art mindful of him ? " In 
another psalm we find that " the heavens 
declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
showeth forth his handiwork ; " and their voice- 
less proclamation of his power is dilated on 
in other poetic images. Again, ''' God telleth 
the number of the stars, and calleth them all 
by name." Isaiah tells us to "lift up our 
eyes on high, and behold who hath created 
these things, bringing out their host by num- 
ber. He calleth them by names. By the 
greatness of his might, because he is strong 
in power, not one faileth." 

The Bible, however, does not dilate upon 
these subjects merely to feed our wonder. It 
adduces them as evidences of the grand unity 

6 



66 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

of nature in God, and in opposition to all 
those mythological follies which induced even 
the most cultivated nations of antiquity to 
personify the heavenly orbs and to assign to 
them divine attributes. 

But the Scripture in two instances assigns 
power to praj^r and miraculous intervention, 
even in the case of the heavenly bodies. In 
two instances only, however, — Joshua's mira- 
cle and that on the sun-dial of Ahaz ; and these 
with special note of their great and excep- 
tional character. With reference to any phys- 
ical explanations of these miracles, it is to be 
observed that none is attempted, though other 
miracles much less stupendous — as, for in- 
stance, the destruction of Sodom and the pass- 
age of the Red Sea — are thus in part explained. 
We may suggest conjectural explanations ; as, 
for example, an abnormal atmospheric refrac- 
tion. But there can be no certainty as to these, 
and both are left as blank mysteries to us as a 
steam-engine or an electric telegraph would 
have been to Joshua or Hezekiah. 

A remarkable use is made of the sidereal 
heaven in certain prophetical passages, where 
it is spoken of as decaying and renewed. 
These prophecies are no doubt emblematic of 



UNIVEBSE AS A WHOLE. 67 

human affairs, rather than Hteral. This is 
amply shown by reference to Isaiah's and Eze- 
kiel's propliecies respecting Babylon, Edom, 
and Egypt, whose fall is represented by the 
falling and blotting out of heavenly bodies, 
and a similar explanation is applicable to our 
Lord's prophecies in Matthew xxiv., and to 
the pictures in the Revelation of St. John. 
Still the representations are taken from literal 
facts, — some of them belonging to the present 
time, others relating to the possible future of 
the universe. To St. John in particular, inter- 
preters have scarcely done justice in this re- 
spect. Many of his pictures are the most 
gorgeous ever shadowed forth in words. Take, 
for instance, his harpers harping by the sea of 
glass mingled with fire. The scene is the 
eventide of the world, after the stormy day of 
trial and persecution. The sun, sinking in the 
west, throws his beams along the smooth and 
unruffled sea, that has forgotten all its storms, 
and glows with fiery lustre 5 while the happy 
souls rescued from the terrors of the past, and 
standing on the shore of safety, tune their 
harps to the song which Moses sang when the 
hosts of Israel had passed safely over the dark 
waters of the Red Sea. Such sketches, inimi- 



68 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

tably touched in a few words^ abound in this 
wonderful book. But John rises to still 
higher flights^ w^hen he tells of a sun blotted 
out from the heavens and becoming black as 
sackcloth of hair ; of a moon reduced to that 
dull ruddy hue which we see almost with 
terror in a lunar eclipse ; of m.eteoric stones, 
whose cosmic significance we are only begin- 
ning to understand 5 raining from heaven like 
figs from a tree shaken with a mighty wind ; 
and the atmospheric heaven, with its clouds, 
rolling up like a scroll. Such pictures point 
not only to eclipses and meteoric showers, but 
to cosmic possibilities now present to the minds 
of astronomers ; to the decay of the solar 
energy, and to the necessity of a renewal of 
our world, and to the chances of change im- 
plied in the cometary and meteoric matter 
which haunts our system. Surely the prophet 
who foreshadows these things without any aid 
from science must have had some spiritual 
insight into the plans of God. We may at 
least be content to admit that the Bible treat- 
ment of the starry heavens is marked by both 
power and accuracy. 



^ UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 69 

The Third or Spiritual Heaven, 

When the Bible speaks of a third or spirit- 
ual heaven, we might suppose that it leaves 
altogether the domain of science. But there 
are some points of connection even here. It 
is necessary, however, in the first place, to 
direct attention to the actual doctrine of script- 
ure respecting the third heaven, since there 
has been so much vague speaking and writing 
on the subject, that the minds of Christians 
have become confused as to its nature, and 
they often seem scarcely to know whether it 
is a place or merely a state. In the Bible, the 
highest heaven is certainly a definite place, 
where God's presence is specially manifested, 
although at the same time it pervades the 
whole universe. Our Lord affirms, that he 
came from this place, and returns to it; and 
he says, '^ I know whence I came." He speaks 
of it as his '^ Father's house," where there are 
'' many mansions ; " as a ^^ paradise ; " and under 
other figures implying a definite locality. 
Paul speaks of being caught up into it. In 
the Old Testament, God's temple at Jerusalem 
was a local emblem of it, and the angel Ga- 
briel^ when visiting Daniel, took a stated time 



70 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

to come from it^ when " flying very swiftly/' 
It is bevond the hmits of the visible universe- 
being the ^^ heaven of heavens/' and is ten- 
anted by spiritual beings whose nature can be 
explained to us only in figures of speech. It 
is a place of special manifestation of God's 
power, but does not limit or contain his 
energy. It is the centre whence sj)iritual 
messengers are despatched to all parts of the 
universe. Lastly , at the resurrection our 
bodies are to take on the condition of hea- 
venly or spiritual bodies, as distinguished from 
natural, and the conditions of heaven are to 
descend to earth and to be established therein, 
so that heaven and earth become one in 
nature, and are permanently identified. 

These ideas are necessary to the biblical 
conception of a personal and spiritual God. 
The pantheist may agree with the Bible in 
believing in a universal, aU-pervading power 
of sbme kind j but he cannot conceive of this 
as personal. The anthropomorphic heathen 
limits and localizes his gods as if they were 
men. The Bible combines both ideas, giving 
us a local habitation for the special dwelling 
of God, and at the same time maintaining 
that the heaven of heavens cannot contain 
him, because his j)resence is everywhere. 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 71 

Of this heaven of heavens^ two scientific 
conceptions are possible. It may include all 
the abysses of space beyond that universe 
within which God has^ if we may so speak^ 
set limits to his own action^ by the institution 
of what we term natural laws. There must 
be a sense^ however little we can understand 
it^ in which God inhabiteth infinity as well as 
eternity. On the other hand^ it may be a 
centre of the universe itself^ and this is per- 
haps the more probable view. For just as we 
have in our system the glorious sun as its 
centre, and as the stars are probably suns with 
attendant worlds, it is a matter of not unrea- 
sonable conjecture, that there exists a physical 
centre for the whole universe, — a sun of suns, 
around which all worlds have their prodigious 
and almost eternal circuits. It is true we 
have no certain knowledge of such a centre, 
but analogy points to it ] and, if the w^orld 
were to continue long enough to accumulate 
in future millenniums accurate series of obser- 
vations of the motion of the whole heavens, 
we might even hope to calculate the direc- 
tion and distance of the physical heaven of 
heavens; and perhaps instruments might be 
constructed to catch some rays of its light for 



72 BIBLICAL VIEWS OF THE 

mortal eyes. Such anticipations may never be 
realized^ and we must for the present be con- 
tent to know that science and revelation^ 
standing on the extreme verge of their re- 
spective fields^, both point to a mysterious 
centre of the universe of God, whence ema- 
nate powers that extend to the utmost limits 
of space, and where dwells glory inaccessible, 
which eve hath not seen, neither hath it 
entered into the heart of man to conceive. 
Strauss has ventured to say that no man, 
'' having a clear conception, in harmony with 
the present standpoint of astronomy, can re- 
present to himself a deity throned in heaven." 
On the contrary, astronomy itself leads us to 
the supposition that God, while, like his own 
great forces of gravitation and heat, per- 
vading and penetrating all tilings, may like 
these forces exert his power from a grand 
dominant centre of creation, where his throne 
may be, in the same figurative sense in which 
the eurth is his footstool. 

It is farther to be observed that the biblical 
idea of a future state of this earth, in which its 
conditions shall become similar to those of the 
spiritual heaven, is not altogether foreign to 
science. A recent writer (Ponton) has well 



UNIVERSE AS A WHOLE, 73 

put this by a reference to the stages through 
which the earth has akeacly passed in geologi- 
cal time. Suppose an earth wholly mineral, 
and that some prophetic intelligence were to 
endeavor to shadow forth in terms of the min- 
eral the approaching introduction of plants, 
we can readily imagine the difficulties of such 
an attempt ; or suppose the plant introduced, 
and the effort to be made to shadow forth the 
new creation of the animal, in terms of the 
plant; or suppose the lower animals intro- 
duced, and our imaginary prophet to have the 
task of explaining from their habits what man 
would think and do when introduced on the 
earth. All these changes we now know as 
actual facts; but may there not be other 
changes in store for the universe, and may 
not men, inspired by prophetic insight, be com- 
missioned to shadow forth, in terms of the 
human and natural, the new and glorious 
manifestations of divine power which are to 
be realized in the future state. 



LECTURE III. 

THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH IN RELATION 
TO THE BIBLE. 



Table I. — Parallelism of the Biblical Cosmogony with 
the Physical and Geological History of the Earth. 



BIBLICAL JEONS. 

The Beginning. 

The Earth without form, and 
void. Darkness on the face of the 
Abyss. 

Day One. 
Creation of Light ( Or). Institu- 
tion of Day and Xight. 



Day Second. 

Universal Ocean. The Expanse 
placed in the midst of the waters. 



Day Third. 
The Dry Land appears. 

Vegetation introduced! 

Day Fourth. 

Luminaries arranged in relation 
to the Earth. 



Day Fifth. 

Creation of Invertebrates and 
Fishes (Sheretzim of the waters). 

Creation of great Tanninim, or 
Reptilian animals, and Birds. 

Day Sixth. 

Introduction of Mammalia as 
dominant. 

Creation of Man and of the 
Edenic Animals. 

Day Seventh. 

The Rest of the Creator. His- 
torical Human Period. 

Day Eighth. 

Renovation of the Earth. The 
New Heaven and New Earth. 



COSMICAL PERIODS. 



Creation of ISIatter and Force. 
Condensation of nebulous or other 
matter to form the solar system. 
The Earth a vaporous mass. 

Diffused light in the solar sys- 
tem. The Earth has a Photosphere. 
Condensation of luminous matter 
within the Earth's orbit. Decay 
of Ten-estrial Photosphere. 

Water condensed on the Earth's 
crust, and covered with a dense 
mass of vapors. 

The institution of the arrange- 
ments of the atmosphere as now 
existing. 

The Earth's crust thrown into 
folds. The lirst continents. 



P re-Lauren tian 
only inferentially. 



vegetation, known 



Beginning of the Archaean or 
Pre-Eozoic Age of geology. Com- 
pletion of existing state of the 
solar system. 

Falceozoic Ti?7ie, or age of Inver- 
tebrates. 

Mtsozoic Time, or age of Rep- 
tiles. 



Neozoic^ w Tertiary Time. Cul- 
mination of ^Mammalia. 

Close of Tertiary and introduc- 
tion of the Human Period. 



Modern Time. Age of Man. 



In the Future. 



LECTURE III. 

THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH IN RELATION 
TO THE BIBLE. 



Generalizations of Geology. — Creative ^ons of 
Genesis. — Order of Creation as Compared with 
Geology. 

A T no point has modern science appeared 
to impinge more heavily on the Bible 
than in the relations of geology to the narrative 
of creation in Genesis. No triumph of in- 
ductive science is greater than that by which 
it has given ns a connected history of the 
stages of the genesis of the earth and its 
inhabitants through a long series of ages 
anterior to man ; and on no point has the 
Bible appeared to insist more strongly than on 
its six creative days. The apparent difference 
has given rise to a swarm of attempts at recon- 
ciliation^ and there has been no want of stern 
denunciation of the impiety of scientific men 
on the one hand and of the bigotry of theo- 



78 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

logians on the other. Happily^ however^ so 
much hght has now been cast upon the subject 
that few inteUigent men see any contradiction 
between the conckisions of geology and the 
doctrine that '' in six days God created the 
heavens and the earth." The subject is^ how- 
ever^ well worthy of some attention^ if for 
nothing else as an example of how the greatest 
apparent difficulties may fade away when 
boldly encountered. 

Nothing can be more surely established on 
the basis of scientific induction than the vast 
length of the periods revealed by the strata of 
the earth's crust. Some geologists are indeed 
not content with that enormous stretch of one 
hundred millions of years which is regarded 
as the shortest possible time which may have 
elapsed since a solid crust first formed on the 
coohng earth.^ To understand this^ we may 
condense into a few propositions the great 
leading results of scientific investigation of 
the earth. 



* Sir William Thomson's estimate. . Gould has argued that this 
time must be very much shortened, and may indeed fall so low 
as five millions of years ; while some evolutionists, like Wallace, 
demand a much longer time than that stated by Sir W. Thomson. 
The absolute age of the earth as a planetary body is at present 
altogether uncertain. 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 79 

Generalizations of Geology. 

1. The widest and most important gener- 
alization of modern geology is, that all the 
materials of the earth's crust, to the greatest 
depth to which we can penetrate, are of such 
a nature as to prove that they are not un- 
changed and primitive rocks, but the results 
of the operation of causes of change now in 
progress. They may be such things as con- 
glomerates, sandstones, shales, and slates, all 
oi which are the debris of older rocks, broken 
down into pebbles, sand, or mud ; or they may 
be limestones, made up of the ruins of corals 
and shells ; or beds of coal and metallic ores, 
accumulated by the agency of vegetable 
matter ; ^ or they may be substances analo- 
gous to the lavas and ashes of modern vol- 
canoes ; or they may be rocks that are aqueous 
in their origin, and now hardened and altered 
by heat. But everywhere we see the evidence 
of change under natural laws still in force. 

* Hunt, in his recent volume, " Papers on Chemical and Physical 
Geology ,'* has shown that the great beds of iron ore are probably 
due to the indirect agency of organic matter, even in cases where, 
as in the Silurian strata, they are not associated with beds of 
coal. That the coal and clay iron-stone of the coal formation are 
due to accumulation of vegetable matter has long been well 
known. 



80 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

2. This being ascertained^ we can next 
affirm that^ in consequence of the manner in 
which successive deposits from water have 
been piled upon each other^ a regular suc- 
cession can be traced in the strata or beds of 
the earthy giving us a chronological sequence 
of deposits extending throughout the whole 
time since the sea first beoran to receive into 
its basin the debris from the wasting land. 
The general nature of this order may be seen 
in the table below. 

3. This series of rock formations acquires 
an immense increase of scientific value from 
the fact that organic remains of the animals 
and plants inhabiting the earth at the different 
stages of its progress are preserved in the 
successive deposits, and can be compared. 
Further, these buried remains indicate suc- 
cessive dynasties of life different from that 
now existing and from each other ; so that we 
can divide the geological history not merely 
by a series of beds of rock alternating with 
each other, but by a series of faunas and 
floras which have occupied the earth succes- 
sively from the dawn of life until now. This 
also is exhibited in the table of geological 
formations, but in a very general way. The 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 81 

numerous species characteristic of each geo- 
logical period can be studied only in books 
specially devoted to this branch of science. 

4. The lapse of time embraced in this geo- 
logical history of the earth is enormous. It 
is difficult to give an idea of this without 
entering into details^ out of place here. A 
few facts must suffice. In the modern period^ 
which includes the time of man and the lower 
animals^ his contemporaries^ such facts as the 
growth of coral reefs^ the erosion of river 
valleys and the deposit of sediment at the 
mouths of rivers^ give a lapse of time to be 
measured by tens of thousands of years. 
Passing to a single formation of older date^ — 
the coal formation^ — this^ as developed in Nova 
Scotia, shows in a single section eighty beds of 
coal, overlying each other, and about a hundred 
fossil forests, all successive. Without reckon- 
ing the time necessary for the deposition of 
the thousands of feet of sand and mud hard- 
ened into stone that enclose these beds, the 
growth of so many peaty layers, often of great 
thickness, with the production and entombment 
of so many forests, and the time involved in 
the emergences and subsidences of the land 
necessary to their appearing as they now do, 



82 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

must have required ages^ compared with which 
the modern j)eriod dwindles into insignificance. 
The accumulation of even one bed of coal 
may have required as long a time as that 
covered by human history. Again, numerous 
great limestones, of immense thickness, and 
covering vast areas, are composed altogether 
of shells of moUusks or corals. Such lime- 
stones give us for the lowest estimate of time 
the lapse of vast ages. Geological time thus 
grows upon us the more that we examine 
its details. Plate II., showing the microscopic 
structure of two great Silurian beds of lime- 
stone, is an illustration of this ; and Table IT. 
represents in a very general way the whole 
great series of formations, terminated by the 
Human or historical epoch. 




Magnified Specimens of Lower Silurian Limestone, showing the manner in which 
it is made up of fragments of Corals, Cricoids and Shells. 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE II. !>• J^'^- 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 



83 



Table II. — View of the Geological History of the Earth, 



Geological Periods. 


Animal Life. 


Vegetable 
Life. 


Neozoic, 
or Tor- , 
ti-iry ' 
Time. 


' Modern and Post- 
glacial. 

Post-pliocene, or 
Glacial. 

Pliocene. 

Miocene. 

Eocene. 


Age of Man. 
Age of Mammals. 


Ageof Angio- 
sperms and 
Palms. 


"srdlir- 


Age of Reptiles 
and Bird^. 


Age of Cycads 
and Pines. 


Palseozoic 
Time. ' 


' Permian. 
Carboniferous. 
Erian, or Devonian. 
Silurian. 

Siluro-Cambrian. 
Cambrian, or 
Primordial. 


Age of Amphibians 
and Fishes. 

Age of Mollusks, 
Corals, and Crus- 
taceans. 


Age of Acrogens 
and Gymno- 
sperms. 

Ageof Algae. 


■c, .^ f Huronian? 
S^ 1 Upper Laurentian. 
xime. 1^ Lower Laurentian. 


Age of Protozoa. 


Indications of 
Plants, not de- 
terminable as 
yet. 



Note. — I have included the Post-pliocene and Modern Ages 
under the Tertiary, because I think there is no good Palaeontolog- 
ical ground for separating them from the earlier Tertiary, except 
in so far as the subordinate divisions are concerned. 



84 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

Creative j^ons of Grenesis, 

Let us now turn to the first chapter of Gen- 
esis, and inquire how we are to reconcile 
these vast periods with a creation in six days. 
It will not serve our purpose here to say that 
the Bible is not intended to teach science^ and 
need not be correct as to minor details. It 
commits itself to an order and a time. We 
cannot escape by saying that the story is a 
mvth to vindicate the fourth commandment ; 
or we shall have to hold very loose notions of 
the truth of Scripture. We cannot say that 
the vao;ue term '^ the beginnino; " covers the 

O C) CI 

geological ages, because there is no chaotic 
condition between these and the human period. 
Further, when we look into the order of the 
narrative, we find that the creation of animals 
begins in the fifth day of the Bible series ; so 
that, even if we suppose our geological chro- 
nology to extend to a httle before the intro- 
duction of animal life, it will cover at most 
three of the six days and part of the seventh. 
The explanation of the whole mystery is, 
that the creative days themselves are long 
periods. It has not been left to geologists to 
discover this ; for, independently of the tradi- 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 85 

tional impression prevailing throughout anti- 
quity that the world had existed through long 
pre-human times^ there are venerable Christian 
authorities^ as Augustine, for instance, who on 
grounds of a purely theological character held 
this doctrine. The internal evidence of this 
conclusion may be shortly stated as follows : — 

1. The perfectly indefinite phrase, ^^in the 
beginning," places no limit in backward ex- 
tension of time to the commencement of God's 
creative work. But the six days must be held 
to include the whole period occupied in the 
arrangements of the earth and of the solar 
system, and the peopling of the earth with 
animal life."^ 

2. The Hebrew word yom^ day, does not 
necessarily mean a natural day. In Gen. i. 5, 
it is used in two senses, only one of which 
can mean a natural day : the earlier creative 
days preceded the institution of the natural 
day; and in Gen. ii. 4, the whole creative 
week is called one day. 

* The view advocated by Dr. Chalmers and by Dr. Pye Smith 
that the geological ages might be contained in the time between 
the beginning and first day, involves a strained interpretation of 
the passage, and is contradicted by the fact that no chaotic period 
intervenes between the human period and the preceding tertiary 



86 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

3. Many internal difficulties occur on the 
hypothesis of natural days. One of these is 
the interval which in chapter second appears 
to have occurred between the creation of the 
man and that of the woman. Others arise 
from the difficulty of replenishing the earth 
with plants and animals in the course of a few 
natural days. 

4. In Psalm xc, attributed to Moses^ and 
certainly written in the style of his poetry in 
Deuteronomy^ one day of Jehovah^ relatively 
to human history, is said to be a thousand 
years ; relatively to creation, it must be much 
longer. 

5. The seventh day is not said to have had 
a morning and evening, nor is God said to 
have resumed his work on the eighth day. 
Hence the seventh day is the period of human 
history in which we still live. Our Saviour 
sustains this view of God's Sabbath in his re- 
markable expression, " My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work." 

6. The fourth commandment, as explained 
])y Moses, requires the supposition of long 
creative days. It cannot be meant that God 
works six natural days, and rests on the seventh 
as we do; but it may be intended that on 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 87 

God's seventh day we should have entered on 
his rest, and that the weekly Sabbath is an 
emblem of that rest, lost by the fall and to be 
restored in the future. 

7. This explanation has the support of the 
writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, whose 
argument in his fourth chapter has no force, 
unless on the supposition that God entered 
into a rest of indefinite duration, which man 
lost by the fall, retaining only the weekly 
Sabbath as a shadow of it, but which is to be 
restored in Christ, who has already entered into 
his rest, of which the Lord's day is in hke 
manner a foreshadowing. This view is indeed 
the only one which brings the Lord's day of 
the Christian fully into harmony with the 
Jewish Sabbath ; making the latter a weekly 
commemoration not only of the completion of 
the work of creation, but of God's rest, which 
man lost by his fall, and the former a weekly 
commemoration of that rest into which the 
Kedeemer has entered, and to which Christians 
look forward. 

8. There is good reason to believe that the 
use of the Greek word aidnes^ with reference 
to the creation, in Ileb. i. 2, and in Eph. iii. 
11; refers to the creative days as indefinite 



88 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

periods, and that these passages should be 
translated in accordance with this view ; while 
we have this authority for. rendering the crea- 
tive periods of Gen. i., by the word ceon rather 
than by day.^ 

These things being considered, it is worthy 
the attention of theologians whether it would 
not be better to abandon the literalism of a 
mediseval theology and return to the patristic 
authority and to the internal harmony of 
Scripture itself in this matter, and thus to 
put Moses in accordance with modern science 
as to the length of the creative days, which 
there seems good reason to believe he himself 
intended to assume. 

Order of Creation as compared with Greology, 

We have noticed as shortly as possible the 
generalizations of geology and the creative 
days of the Bible, to clear the way for the 
more detailed consideration of the harmony 
which subsists between these records, — the one 
revealed to man before the dawn of geological 

* The above is to be regarded merely as a summary of reasons. 
A more full discussion of the subject will be found in the author's 
*'Archaia," chap, vii., also in McDonald's "Creation and the 
Fall," pp. 93 et seq.; and Lewis's Introduction to Lange's Genesis, 
pp. 131 et seq. 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 89 

science^ the other obtained from the inscrip- 
tions which God himself had left in the rocks 
of the earth. That an order of creation is 
given, is in itself a remarkable fact. Still, 
that Moses might cover all the ground of 
ancient heathenism, it was necessary to place 
the work of creation in some order, and none 
could be more appropriate than the order of 
time. I do not here discuss how this revela- 
tion of the creative work was communicated, 
whether in visions corresponding to days or 
otherwise. That it was a divine revelation 
we may rest assured, unless we can believe 
that the contemporaries of the writer had 
already made such progress in physical and 
natural science as to have reached to a scien- 
tific cosmogony. 

The sacred record opens with a " begin- 
ning," a time when neither the heavens nor 
the earth existed except in the mind of the 
Eternal. To us it is equally impossible to 
conceive an eternal succession of natural 
things or an entire absence of matter and 
force. Yet it is plain that one or other must 
be assumed ; and if we exclude God, we place 
ourselves in an absolute dilemma. On the 
other hand, believing in an eternal spiritual 



90 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

First Cause^ we may fall back on him^ and with 
Moses say^ " God created." Further, the ten- 
dency of all modern geological and astronomi- 
cal research has been to point by positive 
indications to a beginning. Geology shows 
ns that the animals and plants which are our 
contemporaries did not always exist, and we 
can trace back animal and vegetable life per- 
haps to their origin on our earth. Even the 
rocks and continents have their geological 
dates, and there are none of them that we 
cannot assign to an origin in geological time. 
So in astronomy, the moon, once apparently 
a body similar to the earth in its physical 
character, has withered into a dry volcanic 
cinder destitute of water and air. The earth 
and Mars are advancing to the same stage. 
Jupiter and Saturn from their great mass, are 
further behind. On the one hand we can 
look back to a time when the whole solar 
system was in a state of incandescence or 
vaporous diffusion, and forward to a time 
when the sun himself will have dissipated all 
his energy. Science therefore must agree with 
Moses in. affirming a beginning of all things. 

The prophet of creation introduces us to 
the earth at a stage when it was without form 



IN RELA TION TO THE BIBLE. 91 

and void^ pr more literally desolate and empty^ 
and darkness was on the face of the abyss, — 
a stage precisely corresponding with the one 
indicated by physical and chemical science^, 
when the earth, having not yet ceased to be a 
whirl of vapor, and before it became a shining, 
sunlike ball with a photosphere, rolled through 
space a vast gaseous and misty mass, destitute 
of its present features, and incapable of being 
the abode of life ; a condition for which the 
words " formless and void " constitute the 
best possible expression. Let it be observed 
here that it is the doctrine of the Bible that it 
pleased God to create not a perfect world, but 
a chaos ; and that thus while the Bible claims 
for God even '' chaos and old night," it opposes 
no theological obstacle to any of those nebular 
or other hypotheses by which astronomers 
have sought to explain the origin of our sys- 
tem, or to those deductions which have been 
drawn from a consideration of its chemical 
conditions in comparison with those now 
known to exist in the sun, the fixed stars and 
nebulse, and the comets.^ 

* These chemical theories are admirably explained in \)v. 
Hunt's Essay on the " Chemistry of 4he Primaeval Earth." Cliem- 
ical and Geological Essays, p. 35. See also for a popular exposi- 
tion of them, the author's *' Story of the Earth/' chap. i. 



92 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

And now in the sacred record the Ahuighty 
Word breaks the silence^ and with the fiat, 
'' Let there be Hght/' the actual work of re- 
ducing the old chaos to order and life begins, 
and begins with scientific appropriateness in 
the introduction of these great forces of which 
solar and nebular light may be taken as the 
type and expression. In the state to which 
the earth had been brought it was a sunlike 
star, 

*' Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun was not," 

as Milton says, gathering this truth, in his 
poetic insight, from the Bible in advance of 
science. Further, the Hebrew word used here 
for light includes the alUed forces of heat and 
electricity, which with light now emanate from 
the solar photosphere. It represents that 
incomprehensible ether which, though theoret- 
ically continuous, vibrates, and whose vibra- 
tions are so regulated as to give light with its 
prismatic colors, and heat, with all its vast 
powers, and the still more strange and won- 
derful actinic power which puts in motion all 
the vital machinery of j^lants, and so is the 
material source of life. If science can any- 
where find evidence of design in the revela- 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 93 

tions of physical agencies ; if it can anywhere 
find a stepping-stone to hft it from the gross- 
ness of atomic matter^ surely it is here. Fit- 
test of all emblems of God is this heavenly 
light; and when first it pulsated through 
space^ then^ if there were anywhere in the 
universe eyes to behold it and minds to think 
of it^ might it be said that there existed a 
physical analogue of Him who is light. But 
another stage has to be passed through^ and 
the earth becomes a dull yet heated mass^ with 
a dense pall of vaporous substances lower- 
ing over it and constantly descending in acid 
rains on its heated surface^, to be as constantly 
thrown off in vapor^ until at length a boiling 
saline ocean could rest upon its surface. 
Modern solar physics^ aided by the spectro- 
scopCj and modern chemistry reasoning on 
the action of the elements in an earth melted 
with fervent heat^ have alone enabled us to 
attach due significance to these stages of the 
creative work. 

Here I may pause to notice a double rela- 
tion in the first chapter of Genesis^ one to 
science, the other to the most ancient myths 
by which religion had been corrupted in the 
days of Moses. We have already noticed the 



94 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 



remarkable fact that Moses can distinguish 
light from luminaries, and that he attaches so 
great importance to the introduction of that 
marvellous ethereal vibration to which we 
owe all the great vivifying powers of nature ; 
and that thus, without any actual scientific 
teaching or committing himself to any theory, 
he falls into harmony with all that we know 
up to this time of light, heat, and electricity, 
all of which are included under the word he 
uses. So in like manner he seizes here on some 
of the most important material of- the old 
superstitions which he wishes to subvert. 
Light and the dawn or twilight are great 
divinities in the myths of antiquity ; and per- 
haps the dawn, as the mother of day and night, 
the greatest and most widely adored of all. 
They, too, must come into their places in the 
Bible as the handmaids of the Almighty. One 
laments, in studying this magnificent revela- 
tion, that it has not been put to its full use by 
the Christian teachers of modern times, but 
perhaps it has triumphs yet in store, not only 
in relation to the old myths that still reign 
in the dark places of the earth, but with refer- 
ence to the more aggressive superstitions of 
modern infidelity. 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 95 

When next the historian lifts the vail we 
see a universal ocean, with the Spirit or breath 
of God brooding on the face of the waters. 
Here again we have a stage in the geological 
history of the earth, that in which its waters 
were condensed on its surface, forming a shore- 
less sea, before those foldings of the crust 
which formed the first dry land. I introduce 
this here, because the universal ocean is to be 
inferred from the statements under the work 
of the second day ; and because, though the 
brooding Spirit is introduced in the general 
statement preceding the first day, I conceive 
that the operation referred to extends up to 
this time. The exact physical significance of 
this operation we may not be able precisely 
to explain. The old Phoenician cosmogony, 
which is related to that of the Hebrews, un- 
dersta^nds it to be a mighty wind or agitation 
of the vaporous mass covering the primeval 
ocean. It is more likely that the meaning is 
theological rather than physical, and imports 
the agency of that Divine Spirit whose emblem 
is breath or the wind, and that it is primarily 
intended to reclaim this from its heathen uses, 
and to give it its place as an emblem of a per- 



96 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

son of the Godhead concerned in the creative 
work. 

I need not here refer again to the produc- 
tion of the atmosphere or to the arrangement 
of the heavenly luminaries^, except to remark 
that the order is that of nature ; since the 
atmospheric firmament must first be cleared, 
in order to the heavenly bodies coming into 
due relation to the earth, and since the con- 
densation of our system might require long 
time before the sun and the larger planets 
were established in their j)resent relations to 
our globe, and the superabundant cometary 
and nebulous matter of the planetary spaces 
got rid of. 

The greatest of all the physical changes 
implied in the preparation of the earth is that 
of the third creative day, in the elevation of 
the dry land and clothing it with vegetation. 
It is in perfect accordance with what we know 
from scientific investigation that the dry land 
should appear before the completion of the 
final arrangements of the bodies of the solar 
system ; but it is an unexpected and hitherto 
unexplained statement, that vegetation should 
make its appearance before these arrange- 
ments were complete. 






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IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 97 

The natural cause of the appearance of the 
first dry land is explamed by geological inves- 
tigation. We left the earth, at the end of the 
second creative aeon, with a solid crust sup- 
porting a universal ocean. But, as time ad- 
vanced, the gradual cooling of the earth's 
mass would make this crust too small for its 
shrunken size. At length it would collapse 
and fall into folds, giving ridges of land and 
shallow oceans. That this process actually 
occurred, not once only, but repeatedly, we 
know from the folded and crumpled condition 
of the rocks along their old lines of upheaval. 
The section in Plate III. affords an actual ex- 
ample of this crumpled condition of the oldest 
rocks. The time required for this, relatively 
to the contemporaneous changes in other parts 
of the solar system, has not, so far as I am 
aware, been calculated ; but some rough ap- 
proximation to it could no doubt be made. 
The question would be, Supposing a vaporous 
condition of our system, what would be the 
time necessary to enable the earth to acquire 
a solid crust, relatively to that needful to ena- 
ble the sun to condense to itself all the nebu- 
lous matter within its reach, and to enable the 

larger planets to assume their present form ? 

7 



93 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

When that calculation shall be made, I have 
no doubt that it will vindicate Moses in giving 
precedence to our little earth, which has not 
only completed its planetary form, but gone 
through a vast series of geological changes, 
while we know that in this work the sun and 
Jupiter and Saturn have still much to do. 

Let us observe here, that the elevation of 
the first dry land was not merely a barren act, 
leading to no consequences. With that great 
change began volcanic phenomena ; the meta- 
morphism of rocks ; the denuding action of the 
rains, waves, and breakers on the land ; the 
deposit of true sedimentary strata in the sea ; 
the unequal thickening of the earth's shell; 
the establishment of the great oceanic cur- 
rents ; and, in short, all those ceaseless causes 
of change by which, in the progress of geo- 
logical time, our continents have acquired their 
present form and structure. These considera- 
tions serve to account for that otherwise sin- 
gular intimation in the thirty-eighth chapter 
of Job, that the '' morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy," at 
this stage of the creative work. The beings 
designated b}^ these terms may be supposed to 
have seen in this process, not merely a crump- 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 99 

ling and fracture of the earth's crust, but all 

that this would lead to in the institution of 

geological changes tending to the production 

of that beautiful variety of mountain, hill, and 

plain, and river, valley and, shore, which the 
if 

land now presents, and which fits it to be the 
abode of the highest forms of life and beauty 
known to our planet. 

So also in this, as in other parts of the great 
work, we have the note of approval, "- God 
saw that it was good." To our view that 
primeval dry land would scarcely have seemed 
good. It was a world of bare rocky peaks 
and verdureless valleys : here, active volcanoes, 
with their heaps of scorise and scarcely cooled 
lavas ; there vast mud-flats, recently up- 
heaved from the bottom of the waters ; no- 
where even a blade of grass, or a clmging 
lichen. Yet it was good in the view of its 
Maker, who could see it in relation to the 
great uses for which he had made it. There 
is, however, a farther thought suggested by 
the approval of the great Artificer. In the 
progress of creation, it seems as if every thing 
at first was in its best estate. No succeeding 
state could parallel the unbroken syunnetry of 
the vaporous ^^ deep," or the brilliancy of our 



100 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

globe when it slione out as a little star with- a 
photosphere of its own. Before the elevation 
of the landj the atmospheric currents^ and 
those of the ocean must have been surpass- 
ingly regular^ and in their best and most 
perfect state. The first dry land may have pre- 
sented crags and peaks and ravines, in a more 
marvellous manner than any succeeding con- 
tinents, — even as the dry and barren moon 
now, in this respect, far surpasses the earth. 
So we shall find in the progress of organic be- 
ing, that every grade of life was in its highest 
and best estate when first introduced, and 
before it was made subordinate to some higher 
type. This is in short one of the great gen- 
eral laws of creation, suggested in Genesis 
and worked out in detail by geology.^ 

We may now turn for a moment to another 
aspect of these questions. Man, according to 
Genesis, as" in all the traditions of antiquity, 
is earth-born, but the earth is not on that 
account a great goddess, nor is the sea the 
domain of other gods. '^ The sea is God's, and 
he made it. His hands also formed the dry 

* Many illustrations of it will be founrl in the " Story of the 
Earth," where I have specially aimed to develop these general 
laws. 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 101 

land/' and accordingly he named them both. 
This naming has a further significance. God 
called the dry land ^^ earth/' the same term 
used in the first verse for the whole world. 
The earth, therefore, of the following passages, 
and of Scripture generally, is specially the dry 
land. Hence the earth is said to be laid on 
^^foundations" and ^^ pillars," and supported 
above the water, and is said to be ^"^in the 
water and by the water," expressions perfectly 
accurate when we understand that the con- 
tinents constitute the earth referred to. 

The elevation of the dry land is perhaps 
more frequently referred to in the Bible than 
any other cosmological fact, and while all have 
been unfairly dealt with, this has been pre- 
eminently so. It has been left out of sight 
that the word '' earth " is by the terms of the 
record restricted to the dry land, and there- 
fore that it is this, and not the whole globe, 
that is referred to, when God's power in up- 
holding it above the waters and establishing 
it so that it cannot be moved is magnified. 
When thus rightly understood, nothing can be 
more thoroughly accurate than the Bible 
language respecting those elevated portions 
of the crust arched and pillared above the 



102 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

waters^ and in which we have our secure 
abode^ except when the earthquake causes 
the earth to tremble. Take, for example, the 
poetical version of this part of the work of 
the six days as it appears in the hymn of 
creation. 

** He founded the earth on its bases, 
That it should not be moved for ever. 
Thou didst cover it with the deep as with a garment; 
The waters stood above the mountains ; 
At thy rebuke they fled ; 

At the voice of thy thunder they hasted away, — 
While mountains rise, valleys sink, 
To the place which thou didst found for them." 

In Job xxviii.j also, we have nearly all of the 
phenomena of the earth referred to in a manner 
at once grand and trutliful. 

*' Surely there is a vein of silver, 

And a place for the gold which men refine; 

Iron is taken from the earth. 

And copper is molten from the ore. 

To the end of darkness and to all extremes man searcheth 

For the stones of darkness and the shadow of death. 

He opens a passage (shaft) from where men dwell; 

Unsupported by the foot, they hang down and swing to 

and fro.* 
The earth — out of it cometh bread ; 
And beneath, it is overturned as by fire, f 

* Gesenius. 

t Perhaps " changed," metamorphosed, as by fire. Conant has 
" destroyed." 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 103 

Its stones are the place of sapphires, 

And it hath lumps * of gold. 

The path (thereto) the bird of prey hath not known ; 

The vulture's eye hath not seen it; f 

The wild beasts' whelps have not trodden it; 

The lion hath not passed over it. 

Man layeth his hand on the hard rock ; 

He turneth up the mountains from their roots ; 

He cutteth channels in the rocks; 

His eye seeth every precious thing. 

He restraineth the streams from tricklino:. 

And bringeth the hidden thing to light. 

But where shall wisdom be found, 

And where is the place of understanding? " 

This passage, incidentally introduced, gives 
us a glimpse of the knowledge of the interior 
of the earth and its products, as it existed in 
an age probably anterior to that of Moses. It 
brings before us the repositories of the valuable 
metals and gems, — the mining operations, 
apparently of some magnitude and difficulty, 
undertaken in extracting them, — and the 
wonderful structure of the earth itself, green 
and productive at the surface, rich in precious 
minerals beneath, and deeper still the abode 
of intense subterranean fires. The only thing 

* *' Dust " in our version, Uterally lumps or " nuggets/* 
t The vulgar and incorrect idea, that the vulture " scents tlie 
carrion from afar," so often reproduced by later poets, has no 
place in the Bible poetry. It is the bird's keen eye that enables 
him to find his prey. 



104 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

wanting^ to give completeness to the picture, 
is some mention of the fossil remains buried 
in the earth ; and, as the main thought is the 
eager and successful search for useful minerals, 
this can hardly be regarded as a defect. The 
application of all this is finer than almost 
any thing else in didactic poetry. Man can 
explore depths of the earth inaccessible to all 
other creatures, and extract .thence treasures 
of inestimable value ; yet, after thus exhaust- 
ing all the natural riches of the earth, he too 
often lacks that highest wisdom which alone 
can fit him for the true ends of his sj)iritual 
being. How true is all this, even in our own 
wonder-working days ! A poet of to-day 
could scarcely say more of subterranean 
wonders, or say it more truthfully and beauti- 
fully ; nor could he arrive at a conclusion 
more pregnant with the highest philosophy 
than the closing words : — 

*' The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; 
And to depart from evil is understanding.'' 

One expression only in the Old Testament 
gives us the word " earth " in its astronomical 
meaning, — that in the twenty-sixth chapter 
of Job : — 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 105 

*' He stretched out the north over empty space; 
He hanged the earth upon nothing,'* 

in which the reference seems to be to the 
revohition of the visible heavens around the 
pole-star^ in connection with the free sus- 
pension of the earth in space, — altogether a 
remarkable evidence of the views which so 
old a writer was enabled to reach with refer- 
ence to the constitution of the universe. 

In the Mosaic account, the land elevated 
above the waters is in the same creative day 
clothed with vegetation. Here a difficulty 
arises, for science as yet knows nothing of a 
vegetation which preceded by a whole period 
the introduction of animals; and that view 
which overlooks the earlier animals, and sup- 
poses the plants of the Devonian and Carbonif- 
erous periods to be here referred to, certainly 
involves a straining of the record. 

Further, the vegetation referred to is ex- 
pressly said to have included not merely the 
lower and humbler groups of plants, the deshe 
or grass of our version, but the higher pho9- 
nogams, or plants equivalent to them, hav- 
ing fruit and seed, and trees as well as the 
herbaceous plants. This is not in accordance 
with the testimony of the rocks, as at present 



106 THE SCIENCE OF THE EARTH 

known to us. The oldest stratified rocks con- 
tain remains of humble animals of the sea. 
Land plants do not appear as fossils until a 
comparatively late geological time. Either 
there is some discrepancy here between the 
two records^ or there is an old plant-bearing 
formation yet undiscovered. That the latter 
should be the case would not be surprising. 
Vegetable Hfe naturally precedes animal hfe 
as being the sole source of the food of ani- 
mals. We know that land existed from a 
period at least as old as that of the first animal 
remains, and it would be somewhat anomalous 
if it remained during all the earlier periods of 
geological time unclothed with vegetation. 
There may, therefore, be in this direction dis- 
coveries in store for geology, though from the 
highly metamorphic condition of the oldest 
sediments, it is possible that no remains may 
exist of this primeval vegetation.^ There 
may be some reference to this first vegetation 
in the statement in Gen. ii., that God had not 

* If any Laurentian or Pre-laurentian land flora should be 
discovered, analogy would lead us to believe that it would consist 
of plants so simple in structure that they might be mistaken for 
algae while they might be tree-like in dimensions, and more ad- 
vanced in their fructification than the structure of their stems and 
other vegetative organs would lead us to expect. 




Psilophyton princeps, one of the oldest Land Plants known to geology — from 
the Upper Silurian and Lower Devonian. [a] Its fruit. (h) Part of 
its Stem, (c) Scalariform vessels from its stem magnified. The figure is 
restored from specimens described by the author. 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE IV. p. 107. 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE. 107 

caused it to rain upon the earthy but that^ a 
mist went up and watered the face of the 
ground. Now it happens that we know^ by 
the evidence of rain marks, that there was 
rain as far back as the primordial ages, so that 
this would place the first plants probably at 
least as far back as the Laurentian age of 
geology. It may be proper to add here, that 
as it is the plan of the first chapter of Genesis 
to mention the original introduction of each 
new form of being, and not the details of its 
history, a vegetation of simple structure, if 
arborescent in its habit, might be held suffi- 
ciently to correspond with the statement as to 
the plants of the third day. The oldest land 
plants of which any satisfactory remains have 
yet been found are those of the upper Silurian, 
and they are allies of the modern club-mosses, 
a low but not the lowest type of vegetation. 
Some of them are of rare beauty and perfec- 
tion of structure. I figure in Plate lY. one of 
them, which seems to have been extremely 
abundant and widely diffused, and which I 
am enabled to restore from specimens found 
by myself. 

The introduction of vegetable life forms a 
new era in the world's history. The earth 



108 THE SCIENCE OF, THE EARTH 

brought forth plants^ yet they were made 
after their species^ and^ when made^ a new 
relation was estabHshed between solar light 
and the earthy by which not only a new beauty 
was given to the worlds but a new power of 
producing those marvellous organic compounds 
on which animal life^ with all its farther en- 
dowments, would be founded. If one looks at 
the structure of a leaf, with its vessels and 
fibres drawing into it the soil water taken up 
by the stem ; its microscopic sac-like cells piled 
loosely on each other, its hygrometric breath- 
ing pores opening and shutting with every 
atmospheric change, and considers that this 
delicate organ is fitted for exposure to wind, 
sun, and rain, and through all to avail itseK of 
undulations transmitted through 90,000,000 
of miles of space, by means of which it can 
convert all the gases of putrescent matters 
from the soil and air into the endless variety of 
products of the plant, we have before us a 
marvel of adaptation perhaps inferior to no 
other in affording an inductive argument for 
design. 

The Bible surely accords with the highest 
science when it claims the vegetable kingdom, 
with all its wonders, as a product of Almighty 



IN RELATION TO THE BIBLE, 109 

power^, and it touches a chord which every 
physiologist can appreciate when it dwells on 
the fruit and seed^ the organs of the new and 
wonderful power of vegetable reproduction, 
perpetuating the plant after its kind ; a sub- 
ject we might profitably dwell on here, but 
that it will come up again in connection with 
animal life. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF ANIMAL LIFE 
IN NATURE AND IN THE BIBLE. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF ANIMAL LIFE 
IN NATURE AND IN THE BIBLE. 



Origin of Life in Genesis. — Comparison with Geol- 
ogy. — Physical Theories of Life. — Theories of 
Derivation of Species. 

TPHE subject of this lecture is the origin 
and progress of animal lif e^ as we find it 
brought before us in the two records of the 
Bible and of geology ; and we shall here give 
precedence to the former. After the comple- 
tion qf the inorganic creation in the fourth 
creative seon^ the story of the great work in 
Genesis proceeds thus : " And God said^ Let 
the waters swarm with swarming creatures^ 
and let birds fly on the surface of the expanse 
of heaven. And God created great reptiles 
and every living, moving thing, which the 
waters brought forth abundantly after its kind, 
and every bird (or flying thing) after its 
kind." In the next creative day the mam- 

8 



114 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

malia are introduced^ and are distinguislied 
into the two groups of Herbivora (bemah) 
and Carnivora (hay' tho-eretz) ; and in the same 
day man himself is created. We shall, in this 
place^ however, attend principally to the work 
of the fifth day, as the connection of man with 
the other mammalia will bring them under 
notice in the sequel. 

Origin and History of Life in Grenesis. 

We may first consider very briefly the 
terms and character of the biblical narrative, 
as introductory to our comparison with the 
results of geology. It will be observed that, 
according to Genesis, all the arrangements of 
the inorganic world were perfected, and the 
dominion of what geologists term "^ existing 
causes " fully introduced before the creation 
of animals. Further, a whole creative seon 
elapsed between the completion of these ar- 
rangements, as far as the earth was concerned, 
and that event. The first animals are pro- 
duced by the waters ; but these waters are 
not now the shoreless ocean of the first day. 
They include dej)ths and shallows of the sea, 
estuaries, and probably lakes and fresh-water 
streams as well. Thus they afford all the con- 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 115 

ditions required for a varied and abundant 
aquatic fauna. 

Again^ the first animals belong to the lower 
grades of that kingdom. The term sheretz^ 
used to denote them^, does not apply, as we 
would infer from the translation '^ creeping 
things " of our version, to their locomotion, 
but to their reproduction. It implies their 
fecundity, and this again implies that low 
grade of organization which admits of repro- 
duction • in its most prolific forms ; since the 
lower and simpler types of animal life are 
those which can multiply in the greatest 
variety of ways and with the greatest ra- 
pidity. A comparison with other passages in 
the Pentateuch, and especially with the lists of 
animals in Leviticus, will show that this term 
applies chiefly to the invertebrate animals, 
with the fishes and a few of the humbler 
members of other vertebrate groups. 

One peculiar group of animals is specially 
characterized in the recapitulation or second 
member of the clause, — the tanninim^ trans- 
lated ^^ great whales " in our version, but 
which a comparison of passages shows is really 
the generic name for the larger and more 
formidable reptiles, of which the crocodile of 



116 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

the Nile^ '' the great tannin that lieth in the 
rivers/' is the representative. The confusion 
of the meanings of the word has been shown 
by Gesenius to depend on the error of identi- 
fying it with the word tan^ which is prob- 
ably the name of a very different creature, 
— the jackal. The distinction is very well 
seen in the fifty-first chapter of Jeremiah, 
where the king of Babylon is introduced, 
under the emblem of a great crocodile {tan- 
nin)^ devouring the nations ; while it is threat- 
ened that the jackal {tan) shall howl in his 
ruined palaces. A comparison of the not very 
numerous passages in which this word occurs 
will fully vindicate the translation '' great 
reptiles/' and thus suffice to characterize the 
fifth creative geon, or the latter half of it, as 
that of the '^ reign of reptiles." ^ 

The birds and the reptiles come in together 
as allied and contemporaneous groups, and the 
introduction of animal life is, especially in the 
case of the tanninim^ said to be a " creation," 
a term not used before in the narrative, except 
in reference to the initial act of the beginning. 



* Soe also *^ Archaia/' page 189, and Appendix G, in the same 
work; in which will be found also discussions of the import of tiie 
other terms referred to in the text. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 117 

Farther^ while one creative day is assigned to 
the introduction and growth of invertebrate 
life^ with that of the fish^, the reptile^ and the 
bird; in the last creative aeon^ the herbivo- 
rous and carnivorous mammalia are introduced 
along with man. 

Comparison tvith Greology, 

These preliminaries being understood, we 
may next proceed to inquire what bearing the 
facts ascertained by the modern science of 
palaeontology have ori this scheme of animal 
creation. 

The first and a very startling conclusion 
that we reach here is, that the fifth and sixth 
days of the Mosaic record cover nearly the 
whole of geological time. Of the earlier crea- 
tive aeons geological science knows nothing ex- 
cept by inference. Only as the work reaches 
that period when animal life made its appear- 
ance, does its record begin. All our geolog- 
ical formations down to the Laurentian con- 
tain fossils ; and the reduction of animal types 
to fewer and lower forms, as we go backward, 
seems to point to the Laurentian period as 
near the beginning of life on the earth. 

A second conclusion is, that both records 



113 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

agree in assuring us that the general arrange- 
ments of inorganic nature were perfected 
before the introduction of animals. In the 
biblical history the sea and land had been 
separated;, and all the arrangements of the 
atmosphere and the relations of the earth to 
the heavenly bodies completed. So^, in the 
geological record^ the eyes of Silurian trilo- 
bites were fitted for the same conditions as 
those of existing animals of their tribe. The 
structure of the trees of the Devonian and 
Carboniferous formations shows that the sap 
moved, and all the other chano:es of veo:etable 

" CO 

life were carried on as at present. Impres- 
sions of rain drops occur in some of the earli- 
est rocks. Hills and valleys, swamps and 
lagoons^ rivers, estuaries, coral reefs, and 
shell beds must have existed at the date of 
the oldest formations ; and all conspire to 
show the fixity not merely of physical laws, 
but of the arrangements and correlations of 
those laws, probably from the beginning of 
geological time. 

Thirdlv. It is remarkable that both records 
concur in ascribing; the oria:in and earliest ex- 
istence of animal life to the sea, where we are 
told there are " creeping things innumerable." 




Early Sheretzim of the Waters. — Restorations of Trilobites and other Crusta- 
ceans, Worms, Pteropods and Zoophytes of the Primordial Period — 
adapted from the '' Story of the Earth." 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE V. p. 118. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 119 

The sea is even yet the great storehouse of 
animal life^ and it would seem for long geo- 
logical ages to have been the only theatre of 
its development. This great cosmical truth^ 
revealed to the ancient Hebrew prophet, 
is not without its scientific significance. In a 
physiological point of view, it indicates the 
important fact that the conditions of animal 
life are easier in the sea than on the land. 
There both the most minute and the grandest 
forms of life can find suitable conditions, and 
there the feebler tissues and the less energetic 
vitaUty can succeed in the battle of life. In 
its geological relations, it shows that it was 
necessary that the land itself, to be suitable 
to the support of the higher forms of life, 
must be born from the sea, and that the action 
of marine organisms in heaping up beds of 
their skeletons was one of the necessary prep- 
arations for the actual condition of our con- 
tinents. 

Fourthly. Both records give us a grand 
procession of dynasties of life, beginning from 
the lower forms and culminating in man. 
This is necessarily more complete in the geo- 
logical record, bo far at least as details are 
concerned. But the relation is precisely that 



120 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

of a broad^ general sketch from the pen of an 
historian to the results of the patient search 
of the antiquary into the buried relics which 
illustrate that same history. The geological 
succession of life has already been given in a 
condensed form in the table attached to the 
last lecture ; but we may here consider it a 
little more in detail. 

The oldest animal known to geology is the 
Eozoon Canadense^ found in the lower 
Laurentian^ the most ancient series of rocks 
known to us. It is a member of the group of 
Protozoa, — very simple, gelatinous animals, as 
near in their structure to the elementary ger- 
minal matter, which seems to be the special 
seat of life in all animals, as it is possible for 
individual living things to be. The modern 
representatives of this group inhabit both the 
ocean and the fresh waters ; but it is in the 
former that they most abound, and it is there 
that they became clothed with calcareous 
shells, which have accumulated in the sea to 
form great limestone beds."^ The represent- 

* Doubts have been thrown on the animal nature of Eozoon ; 
but these seem due rather to preconceived prejudices than to any 
thing defective in the evidence. The whole subject will be fully 
treate<l in a work now in the press, — " The Dawn of Life." See 
also Appendix A. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 121 

ative of this group in the Laurentian era was 
of gigantic size^ forming great reefs of calca- 
reous rock, after the manner of modern corals, 
and it seems to have had few if any rivals in 
the occupancy of those ancient seas. The 
skeleton of Eozoon consisted of a series of 
plates of calcareous matter, perforated with 
pores and canals, and having spaces or cham- 
bers between them for the lodgment of the 
soft gelatinous body of the animal. In Plate 
I. the appearance of this skeleton, as preserved 
in the Laurentian rocks of Canada, is well 
seen. That this was the first created kind of 
animal we cannot affirm. It is merely the 
oldest as yet known to us ; but it may have 
been the first ; and the fact that the earliest 
known tj^pe of animal is of this very simple 
and generalized structure, is significant in 
connection with the scriptural intimation that 
the waters were commanded to '^' swarm with " 
the first animals ; as if these were not built on 
or derived from any previous organized being, 
as for example the plant, but created directly 
in that grade of being in which the nearest 
approach is made to the inorganic. 

Leaving the Laurentian age, in the next 
succeeding or Primordial, a great and wonder- 



122 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

f ul development of life occurs ; and we have 
now species belonging not only to the Pro- 
tozoa^ but to the groups of Radiates^ Mollusks^ 
and Articulates^ no longer merely gelatinous 
animals^ but presenting most complicated parts 
and organs. The teeming multitudes of these 
creatures in the Cambrian and Silurian pe- 
riods were so great that thick beds of lime- 
stone are often made up of fragments of their 
skeletons, and it appears that the seas then 
brought forth the lower forms of life in abun- 
dance since imsurpassed. (See Plate V.) 

As we ascend in the geological series, ver- 
tebrate life has its commencement, beginning, 
like the lower forms, in the waters, and repre- 
sented at first only by the fishes ; and it is not 
until we are approaching the close of the 
Palaeozoic that reptile life is introduced. Rep- 
tiles and birds make their a{)pearance abun- 
dantly in the earlier and middle Mesozoic, in 
which also reptilian life culminates in the 
gigantic and multiform Dinosaurs and their 
allies, of what is^ar excellence the Reptilian 
age. In like manner, the record of creation, 
after stating the creation of lower forms, goes 
on to specify the gigantic reptilian animals of 
the Mesozoic by the term tanninim^ and con- 




Tanninim of the Fifth Day. — Restorations of Mesozoic Reptiles ; — adapted 
from the "Story of the Earth." 

Nature and the Biblo. PLATE YI. p. 128. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 123 

nects with them the birds^ which^ with allied 
winged reptiles, were their contemporaries in 
geological time. We may note here a still 
closer agreement^ when we consider that 
according to both records gigantic carnivorous 
reptiles were lords of creation during at least 
the latter half of one long creative period. 
(See Plate VI.) 

So, as we pass into the next creative aeon, 
the mammalia, represented in the Mesozoic of 
geology by only a few small species, become 
dominant ; and here we have, in the promi- 
nence given to the larger Herbivora (the he- 
moth of Genesis), a position corresponding to 
their grandeur and dominance in the Eocene ; 
while in the introduction of the beasts of the 
earth or carnivorous mammalia, we have the 
inauguration of an era, the later Tertiary, in 
which these assume the highest rank in nature, 
and take the place of the great reptilian life- 
destroyers of the Mesozoic. Lastly in this 
long progression, man appears, not the pro- 
duct of a separate day, but, in accordance 
with the revelations of geology, at the close 
of the same great period in which the mam- 
malia became dominant. And then follows 
the rest of the Creator, in which man was to 



124 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

carry out first in Eden^ and afterward in the 
whole earth the will of his Maker^ in rejDlenish- 
ing the earth and subduing it under the rule 
of his hiorher intelliQ:ence. 

The progress in animal life thus shortly 
sketched, is sufficient to show the remarkable 
manner in which Revelation had long ago 
foreshadowed what in these last days the 
rocks have opened their mouths to tell. 

Fifthly. With reference to the precise man- 
ner of the introduction of life^ or the secondary 
causes, if any, employed in introducing its 
various forms, neither record gives any defi- 
nite information. In the sacred record the 
term " create " is used in the case of the first 
animal life and of that of man. The other 
stages are indicated by a word of less power, 
" make," and by the expressions, " let the 
waters bring forth," '' let the land bring 
forth." So in the geological record the waters 
and the land bring forth successive dynasties 
of life, which continue for a time and perish, 
without telhng us how or why they appear, 
and giving us few hints even as to the causes 
of their decay and disappearance. 

Modern philosophical speculation has en- 
deavored to press scientific facts into its ser- 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 125 

vice with the view of supplying this deficiency 
in our knowledge^ and the greater number of 
these speculations have in our time taken one 
form, that of derivation^ or the descent^ with 
modification^ of one species from another. 
They are based on the order of succession 
of life as it appears in geology^ which such 
views would refer not merely to the plan of 
the Creator, but to a progression of animals 
under natural laws ; and also on the analogy 
between the development of the individual 
anuTial from the embryo and the progress of 
animal life in geological time. 

These two classes of facts they divorce from 
the plan and will of the Almighty, at least in 
so far as any direct action is concerned, and 
explain by certain laws which they profess to 
derive from natural facts. In this way they 
seek to satisfy the desire of the mind for a 
cause of things, without penetrating to a pri- 
mary cause on the one hand or troubling 
themselves as to final causes on the other. 
These speculations may with advantage be 
considered under two distinct divisions : the 
one including hypotheses as to the possible 
origination of life without any creative act ; 
the other those which assume some forms of 



126 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

life as created or otherwise introduced^ and 
proceed to explain the derivation of other and 
higher forms from these primitive types. 

Physical Theories of Life, 

We may descend at once to the lowest 
depth of these hypotheses, by referring to 
Strauss, who, after laboring for a lifetime to 
rationalize the Gospels, at length in his old 
age accepted Darwin as the great apostle of a 
new religion, and was content to believe that 
all the phenomena of life and spirit were 
merely physical, and to utter that unhappy 
confession of unbelief. '' If we could speak 
as honest, upright men, we must acknowledge » 
that we are no longer Christians." It is fair, 
however, to say here that Strauss, as is natu- 
ral, goes beyond his teachers, and affirms more 
than many evolutionists will admit. Still, 
there can be no doubt that in doing so he 
merely does what nine-tenths of earnest men 
will do if they accept his premises. It is easy 
for shallow men on whom religious feelings 
have little hold, or who regard religion as 
merely a thing of sentiment, or a device to 
tickle the senses and quiet the conscience of 
the multitude, to say that they can reject 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 127 

Moses without rejecting Christ; but common 
sense cannot be deceived in this way^ and 
Strauss is merely in this an example of an 
honest thinker who, having drifted from the 
belief in revelation, has founded his faith on 
what, in many cases incorrectly, he fancies to 
be proved results of scientific investigation. 

When Strauss considers it proved, as he 
does, that physical forces have been shown to 
be sufficient to account for all that has been 
referred to life and spirit, he goes altogether 
beyond any thing that scientific discovery has 
yet revealed. If we reduce a living organism 
to a single vegetable cell, or to the microscopic 
grain of jelly-like matter which constitutes one 
of the simplest animalcules, we have in such a 
cell, or in such an animalcule, structures not 
accounted for by any physical or chemical law, 
or combination of such laws, and phenomena 
of life w^hich stand alone among forces, and 
have not yet been shown to be caused by 
either physical or chemical energy. Farther, 
when such an organism dies, we have as yet 
no means of isolating or registering the force 
which it has lost, and yet all the effects for- 
merly produced by this force have disappeared. 
Whether ultimately, as heat and light have 



128 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

been shown to be allied forces or modifications 
of one force^ it will be found that any combi- 
nation of these forces may produce, develop, 
or be converted into vital force, we cannot 
say ; but that this has not been done or even 
shown to be possible is certain. 

It is easy, with some physiologists and phy- 
sicists, to assume this, and to ridicule those 
who believe in vital force ; but when we ex- 
amine their mode of treating the subject, we 
find that they give us figures of speech and 
vague analogies instead of facts. When, for 
example, Huxley says that we might as well 
attribute the formation of water, when hydro- 
gen and oxygen combine, to an imaginary 
principle of aquosity as the properties of living 
matter to a vital force, his own words show 
that he is merely begging the question at 
issue. He says, ^^If the nature and proper- 
ties of water may properly be said to result 
from the nature and disposition of its compo- 
nent molecules, I can find no intelligible 
ground for refusing to say that the projDcrties 
of protoplasm result from the nature and prop- 
erties of its molecules." Now if by protoplasm 
here be meant living protoplasm, the whole 
matter to be nroved is taken for granted. If 



OF ANIMAL LIFE. 129 

protoplasm on the other hand be taken to 
mean dead albumen, reo;arded merelv as a 
chemical compound^ then the statement has 
nothing whatever to do with the subject in 
hand^ and it is so far inaccurate that even dead 
protoplasm has not yet been produced by 
merely physical or chemical means ; but tak- 
ing the two substances at precisely the same 
value as chemical compounds, the denial that 
some new force has actuated the protoplasm, 
when it assumes the varied functions of life, is 
as unreasonable as the denial that some new 
force has taken hold of the w^ater when it 
ascends into a pump or into the branches of a 
tree. Whatever is the nature of the force, 
and however dissimilar in these different 
cases, it is unquestionably superadded to the 
merely chemical forces combining the atoms 
of the compound. 

Or take such a statement as that made by 
Tyndall in a work extensively used as a text- 
book. " Molecular forces determine the form 
which the solar energy shall assume. In the 
one case this energy is so conditioned by its 
atomic machinery as to result in the forma- 
tion of a cabbage \ in another case it is so con- 
ditioned as to result in the formation of an 

9 



ISO ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

oak. So also as regards the reunion of car- 
bon and oxygen : the form of this reunion is 
determined bv the molecular machinery 
through which the combining force acts ; in 
the one case the action may result in the 
formation of a man^ while in the other it may 
result in the formation of a grasshopper." 

This is, to say the least^ a very imper- 
fect and inaccurate statement of the facts 
of the case, and if taken as an exj)osition of 
the origin^ cause^ or conditions of existence 
of hying beings, is certain to mislead. In the 
first place^ though a cabbage could not grow 
without solar energy any more than it could 
grow without water or potash or man}^ other 
things, it cannot be in any sense called a form 
of solar enerpry, neither haye we any eyidence 
that solar energy^ acting for eyer^ could pro- 
duce a cabbage, without a preyious cabbage 
seed. Xor is it true that the difference be- 
tween a cabbage and an oak is merely a differ- 
ence in form of solar enerQ:v, unless indeed 
we assume that the germ of the cabbage and 
of the oak, with all their diyerse yital powers, 
haye also been created by this same solar 
energy. But in this case we should have to 
assume that the omnipotent solar energy ;, even 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 131 

when unconditioned by any machinery what- 
ever, could produce these different forms and 
structures. Further^ it is untrue that either 
a man or a grasshopper can be produced by a 
reunion of carbon and oxygen^ or that any 
reunion of elements could have such effect 
without the previous existence of men and 
grasshoppers. Indeed the solar energy has 
much less to do with the grasshopper than 
with the cabbage^ since its direct action on 
the grasshopj)er is merelj^ concerned in pro- 
ducing its vegetable pabulum. But it is use- 
less to follow such random statements any 
further than to say that when men like Strauss 
are so deluded as to accept them as conclu- 
sions of science, we need not wonder at their 
falling into any amount of error. It is the 
more necessary when utterances of this kind — 
examples, by the way, of an exaggerated and 
sensational style of science-teaching too com- 
mon in our time — pass current with the 
multitude^ as sufficient to explain the origin of 
life, that educated men should have such gen- 
eral knowledge of nature as may enable them 
to jvidge of the validity of the generalizations 
thus promulgated in the sacred name of sci- 
ence. Stripping, however^ such views as those 



132 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

just referred to^ of their more fanciful ad- 
juncts and applications, they merely bring 
before us the wonderful manner in which the 
properties of matter, and the forces which 
actuate it are placed in relation to the organ- 
ism and its peculiar vital powers. How the 
organism was at first constructed and endowed 
with powers so different from those of dead 
matter they do not inform us, and still less do 
they enable us to dispense with creative 
power. 

Theories of Derivation. 

But life being once introduced in some of 
its lower forms, whether animal or vegetable, 
is it necessary to affirm in addition that ani- 
mals and plants were created after their spe- 
cies ? May we not be content to suppose 
that lower forms of life were gradually 
chansced into hisrher, and that thus the earth 
was peopled in its successive ages ? Now, in 
so far as theology is concerned, this may be a 
matter of little consequence, so long as we 
limit our attention to the lower animals ; but 
when we arrive at man the case is very differ- 
ent, and the course followed by the advocates 
of such views is to bring first before us the 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 133 

origin, of the lower animals^ and the lowest 
among them^ and having familiarized us with 
the idea of descent with modification in their 
case, to ascend to man, and show that the 
same law applies to him not only in his mate- 
rial nature, but in whatever of higher powers 
and sentiments there may be in him. Dar- 
win, the great apostle in our day of these 
views, does not seem to have gone so far as 
absolutely to identify the physical and the 
vital, in the way that Huxley, Tyndall, and 
others have done. He seems to require that 
some living forms, however few and simple, 
shall be given to him to begin with. It is 
clear, however, that there is a certain incon- 
sistency in this ; since, if the act of creation 
has been even once performed, there is no 
good reason to deny that it may have been 
repeated. In a philosophy of this kind, how- 
ever, some first point must be reached where 
the premises must be assumed, and it is per- 
haps as well to stop at the great gap between 
the living and the non-living as anywhere 
else, and this is where Darwin has found it 
convenient to stop. 

Granting, then, as material for the process, 
a few of the more ancient and lower forms of 



134 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

life;, as, for example, the old Eozoon of the 
Laureiitian, or a few mollusks and crustaceans 
of the Primordial, have we anv e\ddence that 
out of these the remainder of the animal king- 
dom has been evolved? I take the animal 
kingdom because in it the record is more 
varied and complete. A difficulty meets us 
here at the outset, with reference to the pre- 
cise nature of the question with which we 
have to do. It is that as to the distinction 
between species and varieties. Species of 
animals are supposed to be separated from 
each other by well-marked lines of difference, 
and they have not the power of so intermixing 
with each other as to produce continuously 
fertile progeny. They stand thus as units 
in our systems of natural-history classification. 
But species are more or less variable under 
the influence of external conditions, and the 
varieties so formed may or may not be true 
species. I say " may not ; " for, though I believe 
that they are not, the derivationist tries to 
break down the line between species and vari- 
eties. It results from this that there may be 
different views as to the limits of species. 
Man himself has, for example, been broken 
down into different S23ecies; while by most 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 135 

naturalists the diversities of men are re- 
garded as of the nature of races and varieties. 
The best British naturahsts of our day have 
usually held to large specific aggregates ; the 
continental naturalists, like your own Agassiz 
and his disciples in this country, have been in 
the habit of naming as a distinct species every 
slightly different form. This is still an unset- 
tled point, though I think the error has, been 
rather in making too many species than two 
few, the prejudices and interests of observ- 
ers tending that way. It is plain, however, 
that if we hold that species were created sepa- 
rately, and if out of one group of animals one 
naturalist makes ten species and another three, 
we are not bound to claim the ten species as 
separate creations unless we regard them as 
well founded. 

There is another caution to be noticed on 
the theological side. The verbal precision of 
the first chapter of Genesis must strike every 
candid student. Yet the writer uses different 
formulae for the introduction of different 
grades of being. '' Let the earth bring forth," 
is the formula for plants. '^ Let the waters 
bring forth," is the formula for the lower 
animals. God " created " the great tanninim ; 



136 ORIGIN AND HISTORY ^ 

SO the earth '' brought forth " the mammalia, 
and God " made " or formed them^ but man 
he " created." We can see distinctly by a 
comparison of the use of these expressions in 
the record itself and in other parts of Scripture 
that they are not used at random, and that 
they have different degrees of significance ; 
but what these are we do not as yet precisely 
know. Had I time to enter on the subject, I 
could, however, show you a certain palseon- 
tological appropriateness in them which we 
are beginning to perceive, and, further, that 
they imply that each step of the creative work 
was used by the Creator in some way to 
further each new advance. In the mean time 
we may regard them as intimating that Moses 
does not himself adhere to one mode of creation 
for all animals and plants. He informs us 
that they were created at different times, 
which geology has since amply confirmed, and 
he intimates also that there were different 
modes of operation of the divine power in 
their introduction, a fact which is perhaps less 
clear to us because as yet we have been 
struggling to prove that all animals were 
introduced in one way or another to the 
exclusion of the rest ; while some have been 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 137 

striving to dispense with creation altogether, 
and some to reduce God to an arbitrary mode 
of working. 

Keeping these limitations in view^ we come 
to the question: — What evidence have we 
that the animals now on the earthy or any 
considerable part of them^ have been derived 
from preceding creatures of different species ? 
The direct evidence might be of two kinds. 
First^ we might be able to show that species 
have so varied as to pass over into new specific 
types. Secondly^ we might be able to show 
that ancient and now extinct species have 
given birth to those that now exist. If either 
of these two things could be proved, we should 
then have positive evidence of derivation. 

The first kind of proof has been attempted 
with vast industry and consummate ability by 
Darwin, and the result has been confessedly 
to show that, on this line, direct evidence 
cannot be obtained. In some species, as in 
the pigeon for example, marvellous variability 
can be found ; but then, as Darwin himself 
has shown, all these extreme varieties are still 
pigeons, capable of breeding into each other, 
and even of returning, by cross-breeding, into 
the wild stock from which they sprung. While, 



138 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

therefore, by selection, a vast range of variety 
can be secured, it seems all to fall within the 
limits of the species, and to be incapable of 
breaking down the barrier between any given 
species and even those most nearly allied. 
This Darwin admits, but he claims that he has 
established a presumption that, longer time 
and greater isolation and varieties of condition 
being given, the specific limits might be over- 
stepped ; but this is all, and even this pre- 
sumption seems to become less tenable as the 
facts are more carefully studied. He has 
shown, however, that we should be more 
cautious in our determinations in zoology, 
lest we confound varieties with species. 

The laws referred to by Darwin as con- 
cerned in the work of derivation are thus 
stated by Wallace, in a summary of the hy- 
pothesis maintained by the former : — 

(1.) The law of multiplication of animals in 
geometrical proportion. By this any animal, 
if unchecked, A70uld soon fill the world with 
its progeny. The checks are supplied by the 
destruction of germs and of adults by enemies, 
by limitation of geographical range, by limita- 
tion to particular kinds of food, and by other 
causes. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 139 

(2.) The law of limited population^ whereby 
the habitable area afforded by the earth has 
always been stocked with inhabitants ; so that 
the introduction of any new form of life must 
involve the extinction of others^ and the 
spread of any one beyond its former limits 
must involve the limitation of others^ while 
the germs produced by every kind of animal 
and plant must^ in the great majority of cases, 
fail to find space for their development. Hence 
is supposed to arise a constant " struggle for 
existence." 

(3.) The law of heredity , by which the pro- 
geny of all animals resemble their parents in 
all essential points, though differing in indi- 
vidual details ; and whereby also individual 
peculiarities acquired by the parent may be 
transmitted to its offspring. 

(4.) The law of variation, by which such 
differences under the influence of external 
conditions accumulate until they give rise to 
distinct variations in form, or to races, as we 
observe to be the case in so marked a way 
in our domesticated animals, but not to so 
great an extent in wild animals. This is one 
reason why we can domesticate some species 
and not others. 



140 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

(5.) The law of change of physical condi- 
tions, whereby certain areas of the surface of 
the earth become different at one time from 
what they were at another, in the conditions 
necessary to life. Thus we know that in the 
Miocene tertiary period the climate of Green- 
land and Spitzbergen was so mild that plants 
hke those of the Middle States could flourish 
in those now inhospitable regions. On the 
other hand, in the Post-pliocene time an Arctic 
climate extended further south than at pres- 
ent over our continents and seas. We know 
also that nearly all parts of our continents 
have been many times submerged for long 
periods, and re-elevated to a higher position 
than now. 

(6.) The law of the equilibrium of nature, 
whereby individual varieties and species well 
adapted to their environment flourish, while 
those less perfectly adapted decay; and as, 
according to the previous laws, the conditions 
are constantly changing, the struggle for exist- 
ence constantly goes on, and the animals being 
liable to vary and perpetuate varieties, there 
must of necessity be a gradual change in the 
animal population of the earth. That is, those 
which change so as to become suitable to the 




Sivatherium giganteum. — One of the great Bemoth of the Miocene Tertiary. 
Restored from bones found in the Sub-Himmalayan deposits of India. 
By Dr. Murie, F.G.S. (From the London Geological Magazine). 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE VII. p. 140. 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 141 

changed conditions live^ and those which be- 
come unsuitable die. 

Stated in this way^ we can easily see that 
the Darwinian theory has a very plausible 
aspect, and it is to this that Mill refers when 
he says that, when investigated in detail, it is 
not so absurd as it appears at first sight. 

You will observe, however, that these laws 
do not touch the actual origin of living things. 
They presuppose species and suitable condi- 
tions of life. Further, if there should be any 
way in which new species may be introduced, 
then these laws may be limited in their appli- 
cation to the variation of species within certain 
limits^ and to their extinction when the condi- 
tions become unfavorable too rapidly, or to too 
great an extent. The main conflict between 
the application of these laws and the Script- 
ure, is when they are applied to the origin 
of things, or when they are employed to dis- 
pense with the action of the divine power, by 
which, on the theory of theism, these very 
arrangements were introduced into nature. 
They further come into conflict with revela- 
tion when they represent man with all his 
higher powers as a mere outgrowth of the 
variation of brute animals. But for these 



142 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

applications of it, the Darwinian hypotliesig 
would be a harmless toy for philosophical 
biologists to play with until they can obtain 
some basis of fact on which to explain the 
origin of species. ^ 

These unfair applications of ihe laws of 
variation are^ however^ constantly made, and 
are paraded by a host of litterateurs and 
third-rate scientific men as if they were suf- 
ficient to explain all things^ and to relieve us 
at once from the necessity of the Scriptures 
and of God. 

The second line of argument, that derived 
from palaBontology^ might be expected to 
furnish in fossils connecting links between 
extinct and recent species. On the contrary, 
however, it shows a marvellous persistency of 
species through vast periods of geological 
time, and often under diverse varietal forms, 
passing into each other ; but each species 
seems to come in without progenitors, and to 
become extinct without descendants. It is 
true that the geological record is very imper- 
fect, and that connecting links may be lost ; 
but the want of them in the vast number of 
cases of appearance of new species, and this in 
those formations in which fossils most abound^ 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 143 

takes away the greater part of the force of 
this consideration. Indeed, as new species of 
fossils multiply, and new facts are ascertained 
as to the conditions of their introduction and 
disappearance, the gradually diminishing " im- 
perfection of the record " becomes less and 
less available for the purposes of the evolu- 
tionist. 

The obvious fact that there has been a 
gradual increase in variety and elevation of 
living beings, from the earlier periods until 
now, is often adduced as an evidence of deri- 
vation, but is equally explicable on the sup- 
position of a creative plan. Nay, more, the 
palseontological laws which have been estab- 
lished as to the introduction of great numbers 
of allied species at once, and in many places at 
the same time ; as to the introduction of each 
great type in high, if generalized, forms, and 
its subsequent degradation in relative rank ; 
and as to the rapid variation of each new 
species, so as to adapt itself in a very short 
time to all conditions open to it, — lean decid- 
edly to the doctrine of creative law and plan, 
rather than to that of derivation.^ 

* These laws are stated and discussed in a popular form in my 
" Story of the Earth." See also Appendix B. 



144 ORIGIN AND HISTORY 

The nearest approach to direct palcBonto- 
logical evidence is that which has been adduced 
by Huxley in England^ and Marsh in this 
country^ as to the relations of the modern 
and tertiary horses to some similar animals, 
their predecessors in the middle and early 
tertiary periods. This shows undoubtedly 
the introduction at successive periods, between 
the beginning of the Eocene tertiary and the 
modern, of animals more and more approxi- 
mating to the modern horse. But none of 
these are known to pass into each other by 
varietal forms ; and the supposition that they 
were produced by a passage from one to the 
other, even if this were granted as possible, 
requires, when striving to realize it, such a 
complicated combination of changes in the 
animals themselves and in their surroundings, 
that it becomes simply incredible, except on 
the supposition of intentional intervention. 

In so far, then, as either the origin of species 
or the origin of man is concerned, the Dar- 
winian theory is not entitled to rank as a 
result of scientific induction. It rests merely 
on analogy, and on its power to explain easily 
a great variety of phenomena, provided its 
premises are granted. In this it contrasts in 



OF ANIMAL LIFE, 145 

a scientific point of view unfavorably with the 
old idea of creative design^ which undoubtedly 
rests on an inductive basis. On the whole^ 
therefore^ we may be satisfied that Scripture 
in its doctrine as to the origin of animals 
contradicts no received result of science and 
anticipates many of its discoveries^ though 
neither Scripture nor science as yet enables us 
to understand the ^precise mode in which new 
species were introduced. I would that I had 
time to add some notices of the many beauti- 
ful references to the animal kingdom in the 
Scriptures. Many lectures would be required 
to illustrate the multitude of ways in which^ 
with inimitable truth and beauty^ the animal 
kingdom is made to teach us of spiritual 
things^ and to illustrate the character of its 
Maker. 



10 



LECTURE V, 

THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF MAN, 
ACCORDING TO SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. 



LECTUEE V. 

THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF MAN, 
ACCORDING TO SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. 



Testimony of Geology. — Antiquity of Man. — Re- 
lation OF Prehistoric Man to Modern Races. — 
Comparisons with Biblical History. 

'\ y^^HAT is sometimes in our day termed the 
science of anthropology is a strangely 
mixed subject^ compounded of archaeology^ 
physiology^ and psychology^ and touching at 
almost every point on geology and sacred his- 
tory^ though pursued by its many followers in 
a spirit both dashing and independent. As I 
may take it for granted that my auditors are 
well acquainted with what Scripture teaches 
of the early history of man^ I may on this 
subject proceed at once to notice what we 
learn of it from archaeology and geology. 

Testimony of Creology, 

We have already seen that geology pre- 
sents an ascending progression of life^ and in 



150 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

passing upward in the scale of the geological 
ages we are for a long series of these ages 
like travellers exploring some desert isle 
where new and strange animals meet us at 
every step^ but where we see no trace of man. 
It is only after the magnificent culmination of 
mammalian life in the middle Tertiary period^ 
and its decadence on the approach of the 
cold of the Glacial or Pleistocene, and the 
renewal of the world in the Post-glacial or 
Modern period, that we can look for man with 
any hope of success. In the later Miocene 
and Pliocene ages, our continents had attained 
to their full development. Under the mild 
climatic conditions of these times, they were 
clothed with a luxuriant flora, and the num- 
bers and wide distribution of the higher and 
larger forms of mammalian life were greater 
and more complete than at any previous or 
subsequent period. But it would seem that 
man was not destined to appear in this age of 
the world, so noble in all other respects. 

At the end of the Pliocene began the great 
age of arctic cold, the so-called Glacial period. 
The land by gradual subsidence began to lose 
its fair proportions, the seas became invaded 
by northern ice, snows began to settle perma- 



HISTORY OF MAN. 151 

nently on the hill-tops^ and glaciers to plough 
their way toward the sea. The world^ after 
all its changes^ seemed about to fall into ruin^ 
and multitudes of species of animals and plants 
either perished or were driven to those south- 
ern portions of the continents which still re- 
mained habitable. But this great change was 
only a long winter^ during which the plough- 
share of God was to prepare the world for a 
new spring. So the land rose again^ and its 
warm climate was partially restored ; great 
rains and meltino; snows remodellino; its feat- 
ures of valley and plain. At length the north- 
ern continents became even more extensive 
than they are now. England and Ireland^ for 
example^ were joined to the Continent of 
Europe ; and a great but nameless river 
flowing through wide plains now covered by 
the sea, received the streams of Northern 
France, England, and Germany. The Ameri- 
can land also stretched farther into the 
Atlantic than it does at the present day, of 
which remarkable evidences exist in the sub- 
merged forests under the waters of the Bay of 
Fundy and elsewhere on our coasts. 

In this, the Post-glacial period of geology, 
the land again became tenanted by animals^ 



152 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

some of tliem survivors of the Pliocene age, 
some of them new ; and it is to this time that 
many geological facts tend to assign the first 
appearance of man in Europe and Western 
Asia. If this Avas the date of his appearance, 
he was then contemporary with many great 
mammals now extinct, or which have become 
much limited in geographical range. Accord- 
ing to Pictet, ninety-eight mammals are known 
by their remains to have inhabited Europe at 
this time. Of these, fifty-seven still survive, 
and no new ones have been added except man, 
the sheep, the dog, and a few others which 
may have come in with man. In Britain, 
Dawkins estimates fifty-three species in all of 
Post-glacial mammals. Of these, twelve are 
survivors of the Pliocene, forty-one are new, 
twentv-eisrht survive as modern inhabitants of 
Britain, fourteen have become wholly extinct, 
eleven are locally extinct or are now known 
only in other parts of the world.^ 

Of the wholly extinct species are ElepJias 
primigeiiktSy the mammoth ; Rhinoceros ticho- 
rhinus^ the woolly rhinoceros ; Ursics spe- 
Iceus, the cave bear, &c. Of the locally 
extinct species are the reindeer, the musk 

* Memoirs of Palaeontographical Society. See Appendix C. 




Extinct Animals supposed to have been contemporary with Falaeocosmic 3Tan. — 
The Mammoth, Tichorhine Rhinoceros, Extinct Hippopotamus, Machairo- 
dus and Long-fronted Ox. The animals reduced from a Picture by 
Warerhouse Hawkins. 



Nature and the Bible. 



PLATE VIII. 



p. 152. 



HISTORY OF MAN. 153 

sheep^ tlie long-fronted ox^ the lion^ the cape 
hyena^ &c. : a strange nnion of species now 
widely separated geographically ; but indicat- 
ing a wooded country with a somewhat equa- 
ble climate^ though perhaps a low mean 
temperature. 

It would thus seem that man entered Europe 
at a time when its mammalian fauna was 
richer than now, and when it was a densely 
wooded region^ into which he straggled from 
his Edenic centre of creation^ with a few of 
the animals connected with him there. If so^ 
he was not destined to remain long undis- 
turbedj for another great subsidence seems to 
have occurred^ connected apparently with the 
extinction from Europe of many kinds of ani- 
mals^ and closing the time of what may be 
called Palaeocosmic^ or^ if we take a Biblical 
mode of expression, antediluvian man, and 
reducing eventually the European land to its 
present proportions, and introducing a new 
race allied to the Basques and Lapps, who 
may be named the Neocosmic peoples, to 
be followed by the Celts and Teutons, and 
other historic nations. To this Neocosmic ai^e 
belong the remains found in the Swiss lake 
habitations and the shell-heaps of Denmark. 



154 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

I have rapidly summed up the results of 
recent geological Researches on this subject, 
the details of which may be found in many 
popular works^ as for example in Sir Charles 
Lyell's ^^ Antiquity of Man." It is to be ob- 
servedj however, that no geological researches 
are accompanied with greater difficulties than 
those that relate to the period immediately 
preceding the advent of man, and that in the 
above statements I have been obliged to speak 
in very general terms to avoid trenching on 
disputed ground. It is farther to be observed 
that it is only in Europe and Eastern America 
that even tolerable certainty has been attained 
respecting the geology of the Post-glacial and 
early Modern periods, and neither of these 
regions can be affirmed either on historical or 
geological grounds to have been the most 
primitive abodes of man. 

European antiquaries have called the most 
ancient of the races known in that part of 
the world Palseolithic men, and the more 
modern Neolithic, under the impression that 
the earlier race used only rudely formed 
instruments of stone, while the later could 
fashion better stone implements ; but Ameri- 
can analogies and many European facts teach 



HISTORY OF MAN, 155 

US that these indications from implements 
may be very fallacious. The ruder American 
tribes, as well as those in a semi-civilized 
condition, used at one and the same time 
implements roughly chipped and highly pol- 
ished, the difference depending on the material 
employed and the uses for which the weapons 
or implements were intended; and it is well 
known that contiguous tribes differed in their 
expertness in the manufacture, and in the 
methods and materials they employed. This 
was no doubt also the case with prehistoric 
men in Europe. Further, in some districts 
and for some purposes, very rude stone im- 
plements were used up to a late time, long 
after the abundant introduction of metals. 
Little chronological value is thus to be at- 
tached to this distinction, and the terms them- 
selves are therefore objectionable ; while it 
is evident that they cannot even locally be 
absolutely maintained, since highly polished 
bone implements and even pottery are found 
in repositories classed as of Palaeolithic age. 
It is for these reasons that I have suo;o;ested 
the terms Paloeocosmic and Neocosmic, and I 
would hold as of the first age such men as can 
be proved to have lived in the time of greatest 



156 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

elevation of the European land in the Post- 
glacial period^ and as of the second those who 
came in as their successors in the Modern 
period. The earlier or Pateocosmic age has 
also been termed the Mammoth age^ because 
that great elephantine animal is believed to 
have still survived; and the later Stone age or 
the Neocosmic has, in its earlier part at least, 
received the name of the Reindeer age, because 
of the abundance of remains of this animal 
found in deposits of the time. 

Both the PalaBocosmic and Neocosmic men 
belong to the " Stone age/' which continued 
to j)revail in Europe from a period of unknown 
antiquity, imtil the introduction of bronze, 
that useful and beautiful alloy of coj)per and 
tin, as a material for weapons, tools, and 
ornaments. This " Bronze acre " undoubtedlv 
began to replace that of stone when the 
discovery of the tin deposits of Cornwall 
enabled the Carthaginians for the first time 
to manufacture cheap bronze, and to supply 
it to the tribes with which they carried on 
trade ; and in still more recent times iron 
superseded bronze. 

As an illustration of the evidence of the 
distinction between the earlier and later Stone 



HISTORY OF MAN. 157 

age^ as represented by the terms Palaeocosmic 
and Neocosmic, I may refer to the caves near 
Liege^ in Belgium^ explored by Schmerhng^ 
Dupont^ and others. Some of these have a 
lower stratum of mud or gravely containing 
bones of the mammoth and other extinct 
animals^ mixed with human bones belonging 
to a large and well-developed race of men. 
Over this are, in some cases, to be found 
interments of a smaller race, like the modern 
Laplanders, who seem to have succeeded the 
first race, and with whom are remains indi- 
cating that the animals of Europe were similar 
to those now living there, except that some 
species, as the reindeer, now locally extinct, 
were present. This second race is by some 
held to be Palaeolithic, and it certainly pre- 
ceded the more modern Celtic and Germanic 
races, but it came in after the mammoth and 
other great Post-glacial mammals had become 
extinct, and after the European land had been 
settled at its present level. It is therefore in 
our view Neocosmic, whereas the older race, 
supposed to be contemporary with the mam- 
moth, can alone claim to be Pateocosmic. I 
confess that the evidence stated by Dupont, in 
his work on the Belgian caves, is that which 



158 THE ORIGIN ANIh EARLY 

to me most clearly establishes a geological 
probability in favor of the existence of man 
in the Post-glacial or Mammoth age ; and this 
evidence is corroborated by so many other 
facts that I think it must, for the present at 
least, be accepted. The conclusions which it 
seems to prove may be stated thus. At some 
unknown period, before the occupation of 
Western Europe by the modern historic races, 
it was occupied by a race of men of small 
stature, brachycephahc, or with short heads 
and with Turanian ^ features, allied in physical 
characters to the modern Lapps, and using 
implements similar to those of the modern 
Esquimaux. In their time Europe was oc- 
cupied by its present fauna, but was sufficiently 
cool, or sufficiently densely wooded, to enable 
the reindeer to exist abundantly in France. 
At a still earlier time this race of the Reindeer 
age was preceded by another race not dis- 
similar in its modes of life and implements 
and weapons, and of Turanian type, but of 
large stature and great bodily power, and 
dohchocephalic, or with long heads. In their 

* The term Turanian is used as representing the Mongolian and 
American races, which resemble each other in physical characters 
and language, and which are also the most akin, in the characters of 
the skeleton at least, to the oldest European races. 



HISTORY OF MAN, 159 

time the European land was more extensive 
than at present^ and the mammoth and its 
contemporaries still existed. This race and 
manj^ species of large mammalia had disap- 
peared from Europe before the advent of the 
first-mentioned race. These large men of the 
Mammoth age are^ then^ the true PaloBocosmic 
men^ and the oldest race of men of whom we 
have any geological information."^ 

Antiquity of Man, 

We may in this investigation limit ourselves 
to the consideration of the earliest or Palseocos- 
mic men ; and the two main points with refer- 
ence to them^ embraced in our present subject^ 
are their antiquity and their relation to modern 
races of men. ' With respect to the first pointy 
we shall find that little certainty as to their 
absolute date can be attained^ except that they 
are geologically very modern and historically 
very ancient ; and with respect to the second^ 
that they are closely allied to that race of 
men which in historic times has been i\\e most 
widely spread of any. As these men are pre- 
historic, we can have^ with respect to their 
antiquity^ only geological evidence, and this 

* See Appendix C. 



160 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

resolves itself into the calculation of the rate 
of erosion of river valleys^ of deposition of 
gravels and cave-earths^ and of formation of 
stalagmite crusts, all of which are so variable 
and uncertain that^ though it may be said that 
an impression of great antiquity beyond the 
time of received history has been left on the 
minds of geologists, no absolute antiquity has 
been proved; and while some/ on such evi- 
dence, would stretch the antiquity of man to 
even half a million of years, the oldest of these 
remains may, after all, not exceed our tradi- 
tional six thousand. With reference for ex- 
ample to the erosion of river valleys in Western 
Europe, it can be shown that this probably 
belongs to a much earlier j)eriod than that of 
man, and that old valleys filled with debris 
during the Glacial period could be scoured out 
in no great lapse of time, especially if the early 
Modern period was, as some suppose, a time 
of excessive rainfall. With reference to the 
growth of stalagmite in caves, recent observa- 
tions show that this may be much more rapid 
than has been supposed, and that its rate now 
is no measure for that which may have pre- 
vailed at an earlier period and in a forest-clad 
region. With reference to the elevations and 



HISTORY OF MAN. 161 

subsidences which have occurred^ we have no 
measure of time to apply to them; and the 
question is not yet settled whether they were 
of a slow and gradual nature like some now in 
progress, or whether, like others that have 
occurred in connection with earthquakes, they 
may have been rapid and cataclysmal. 

If, on the other hand, we turn to the evidence 
afforded by the extinction of animals, we know 
that the reindeer and the aurochs existed in 
Europe up to the time of the Romans, and the 
great Irish deer up to the time of modern peat 
bogs. And we have no good evidence that 
the mammoth and cave bear and woolly rhino- 
ceros may not have lived up to the time when 
men of the Biblical antediluvian period first 
migrated into Europe. Nor have we any 
good evidence as yet as to whether their ex- 
tinction was gradual or comparatively sudden, 
or whether man himself may not have had 
some connection with their disappearance- 
One fact adverse to the high antiquity which 
has been demanded for European man is the 
small number of individual skeletons found in 
Europe, compared with those of contemporary 
animals, which either implies a short time of 

residence or an extremely sparse population. 

11 



162 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

It is remarkable in this connection that nearly 
all the remains referred to Palaeocosmic men 
have been found in caves, and many of them in 
circumstances which imply interment. What 
has become of the other cemeteries of these 
men, if they had such ? The question espe- 
cially strikes us in America, where even nations 
not very populous have left extensive ossuaries 
and burial mounds. Were their tombs swept 
away or buried by a diluvial cataclysm ? Did 
these ancient peoples, like some American and 
Australian tribes, place their dead on wooden 
stages, and were the cave burials exceptional ; 
or were there, after all, only a few very small 
tribes in Europe in Pal^ocosmic times, and was 
their duration only brief ? 

As I have referred to America, I may state 
here that the actual American race, though 
nearlj^ allied in form and feature to Palaeocosmic 
men, can make no pretension to great anti- 
quity. Even its oldest remains, those of the 
mound-builders of the Ohio and Mississippi, 
though historically ancient, are on the modern 
alluvia of the rivers, and can claim no geologi- 
cal antiquity. Their languages, customs, and 
religions are allied to those of post-diluvian 
nations of the Old World ; and, though they 



HISTORY OF MAN, 163 

indicate migrations at a time when the Tura- 
nian race was still dominant there^ go no farther 
back than this. Further^ those skulls and 
other remains for which a higher antiquity 
has been claimed are identical wdth those of 
the modern races ; and I agree with my friend 
Dr. Newberry^ and other good geologists^ that 
no valid geological evidence of the great age 
assigned to some of them by their discoverers 
has yet been adduced. 

Comparisons with Modern Races. 

When we come to the second question^ that 
of their relations to modern men, we find no 
reason to refer Palseocosmic men to a low 
type ; and we have, fortunately, now obtained 
good material for comparison, in so far as 
skulls and skeletons are concerned. More 
especially the skull found in the cave at Engis 
in Belgium, those of Cro-magnon and other 
caverns in France, so well described in the 
"^ Reliquiae Aquitanicoe " of Lartet and Christy, 
and more recently those found in the caves of 
Mentone, leave little to be desired in this re- 
spect. 

The skeleton found by Dr. Riviere in the 
cave of Mentone in Southern France; and now 



164 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

well known by means of his excellent descrip- 
tions and photographs^ is that of a man of large 
stature and great muscular power^ with no 
simian characters^ and with a countenance 
Mongolian or Turanian in type, but in every 
respect entirely human, while the brain was 
of large dimensions. The man had been 
buried clad in a robe of skins, with a head- 
dress ornamented with shells and teeth of 
deer. A bone bodkin and flint implements 
were found near him, and a quantity of red 
oxide of iron, no doubt his ^^ war paint." Dr. 
Riviere considers it certain from the remains 
found in the debris overljdng this skeleton 
that it belongs to a man of the Mammoth age, 
a truly Palceocosmic man.' It is also certain 
that he was interred : and the whole of the 
circumstances point to a somewhat rude state 
of society, corresponding perhaps to that of 
the hunter tribes of America j but to a j)hysi- 
cally high development of the human type, 
and to a volume of brain not inferior to that 
of the modern European. 

I may be pardoned for giving a little more 
in detail the facts derived from the remark- 
able skeletons of Cro-magnon, which may be 
in j)art illustrated by the outlines of skulls in 
Plate IX. 




Outlines of three European Palseocosmic Skulls. — Outer outline, Cro-magnon 
Skull ; Second outline, Engis Skull ; Third Outline (dotted) Neanderthal 
Skull. Inner Figure, an ancient American Skull, from the site of Hoche- 
laga, on a smaller scale, for comparison. 

Nature and the Bible. PLATE IX. p. 164. 



HISTORY OF MAN, 165 

The beautiful work of Lartet and Christy 
has vividly portrayed to us the antiquities of 
the limestone plateau of the Dordogne^ the 
ancient Aquitania^ — remains which recall to 
us a population of Horites^ or cave-dwellers^ 
of a time anterior to the dawn of history in 
France^ living much like the modern hunter 
tribes of America^, and^ as already stated^ pos- 
sibly contemporary^ in their early history at 
least;, with the raammoth and its extinct 
companions of the later Pleistocene forests. 
What manner of people were these oldest of 
Europeans ? The answer is given by the 
skeletons found in the cave of Cro-magnon. 
This is a shelter or hollow under an over- 
hanging ledge of limestone^ and excavated 
originally by the action of the weather on a 
softer bed. It fronts the south-west and the 
little river Vezere ; and^ having originally been 
about eight feet high and nearly twenty deep^ 
must have formed a cosy shelter from rain^ or 
cold^ or summer sun^ and with a pleasant out- 
look from its front. All rude races have much 
nagacity in making selections of this sort. 
Being nearly fifty feet wide^, it was capacious 
enough to accommodate several families, and 
when in use it no doubt had trees or shrubs 



166 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

in fronts and may have been farther completed 
by stones^ poles^ or bark placed across the 
opening. It seems^ however^ in the first in- 
stance to have been used only at intervals, 
and to have been left vacant for considerable 
portions of time. Perhaps it was visited only 
by hunting or war parties. But subsequently 
it was permanently occupied ; and this for so 
long a time that in some places a foot and a 
half of ashes and carbonaceous matter with 
bones^ implements, &c., was accumulated. By 
this time the height of the cavern had been 
much diminished, and instead of clearing it 
out for future use it was made a place of burial 
in which four or five individuals were interred. 
Of these, two were men, — one of great age, 
the other probably in the prime of life. A third 
was a woman of about thirty or forty years of 
age. The other remains were too fragmen- 
tary to give very certain results. 

These bones unquestionably belong to the 
oldest race of men known in western Europe. 
They have been most carefully examined by 
several competent anatomists and archseolo- 
gists, and the results have been published with 
excellent figures in the " Eeliquiae AquitanicaB." 
They are, therefore, of the utmost interest for 



HISTORY OF MAN, 167 

our present purpose ; and I shall try so to 
divest the descriptions of anatomical details 
as to give a clear notion of their character. 
The '' Old Man of Cro-magnon " was of great 
stature, being nearly six feet high. More 
than this, his bones show that he was of the 
strongest and most athletic muscular develop- 
ment, — a Samson in strength : and the bones 
of the limbs have the peculiar form which is 
characteristic of athletic men hjibituated to 
rough walking, climbing, and running ; for 
this is, I believe, the real meaning of the enor- 
mous strength of the thigh-bone, and the flat- 
tened condition of the leg in this and other 
old skeletons. It occurs to some extent, 
though much less than in this old man, in 
American skeletons. His skull presents all 
the characters of advanced age, though the 
teeth had been worn down to the sockets 
without being lost, which again is the charac- 
ter of some, though not of all, aged Indian 
skulls. The skull proper, or brain-case, is 
very long, more so than in ordinary modern 
skulls, and this length is accompanied with a 
great breadth, so that the brain was of greater 
size than in average modern men ; and the 
frontal region was largely and well developed. 



168 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

Its length is stated at 7.9 inches, its height 
5.1 inch, and its breadth 5.8 inches, while 
its capacity is no less than 97 cubic inches. 
In this respect this most ancient skull fails 
utterly to vindicate the expectations of those 
who would regard prehistoric men as approach- 
ing to the apes. It is at the opposite extreme. 
The face, however, presented very peculiar 
characters. It was extremely broad, with 
projecting cheek-bones and heavy jaw, in 
this resembling the coarse types of the Amer- 
ican face ; and the eye-orbits were square, and 
elongated laterally. The nose was large and 
prominent, and the jaws projected somewhat 
forward. This man, therefore, had, as to his 
features, some resemblance to the harsher 
type of American physiognomy, with over- 
hanging brows, small and transverse eyes, 
high cheek-bones, and coarse mouth. He 
had not lived to so great an age without some 
rubs, for his thigh-bone showed a depression 
which must have resulted from a severe 
wound, perhaps from the horn of some wild 
animal, or the spear of an enemy. 

The woman presented similar charaaters of 
stature and cranial form, modified by her sex, 
and must have been in form and visage a veri- 



HISTORY OF MAN, 169 

table squaw^ who^ if her hair and complexion 
were suitable^ would have passed at once for 
an Indian woman^ but one of unusual size and 
development. Her head bears sad testimony 
to the violence of her age and people. She 
died from the effects of a blow from a ^tone- 
headed pogamogan or spear^ which has pene- 
trated the right side of the forehead with so 
clean a fracture as to indicate the extreme 
rapidity and force of its blow. It is inferred 
from the condition of the edges of this wound 
that she may have survived its infliction for 
two weeks or more. If^ as is most likely ^ the 
wound was received in some sudden attack by 
a hostile tribe^ they must have been driven off 
or have retired^ leaving the wounded woman 
in the hands of her friends to be tended for a 
time^ and then buried^ either with other mem- 
bers of her family or with others who had 
perished in the same skirmish. Unless the 
wound was inflicted in sleep^ during a night 
attack, she must have fallen, not in flight, but 
with her face to the foe, perhaps aiding the 
resistance of her friends, or shielding her little 
ones from destruction. With the people of 
Cro-magnon, as with the American Indians, 
the care of the wounded was probably a sacred 



170 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

duty^ not to be neglected without incurring 
the greatest disgrace and the vengeance of the 
guardian spirits of the sufferers. 

While the skeletons of Cro-magnon corre- 
spond to that of Mentone in type, they corre- 
spond also in indications of the habits of the race. 
The ornaments found at Cro-magnon were 
perforated shells from the Atlantic, and pieces 
of ivory. Those at Mentone were perforated 
Neritinae from the Mediterranean, and canine 
teeth of the deer. In both cases there was 
evidence that these ancient people painted 
themselves with red oxide of iron; and, as if 
to complete the similarity, the Mentone man 
had an old healed-uj) fracture of the radius of 
the left arm, the effect of a violent blow or 
of a fall. In the cave of La Madelaine, which 
was probably inhabited by the same race, was 
found a plate of ivory having a rude likeness 
of the mammoth carved on it, — probably some 
family or tribal " totem " of the period. 
(Plate X.) Skulls found at Chchy and Gre- 
nelle in 1868 and 1869 are described by Pro- 
fessor Broca and Mr. Fleurens as of the same 
general type, and remains found at Gibral- 
tar and in the cave of Paviland, in England, 
seem also to have belonged to the same race. 



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HISTORY OF MAN, 171 

The celebrated Engis skull, believed to have 
belonged to a contemporary of the mammoth, 
is also precisely of the same type, though less 
massive than that of Cro-magnon ; and, lastly, 
even the somewhat degraded Neanderthal 
skull, found in a cave near Dussellorf, though, 
like that of Clichy, inferior in frontal develop- 
ment, is referable to the same peculiar long- 
headed style of man, iii so far as can be judged 
from the portion that remains. 

Let it be observed, then, that these skulls 
are probably the oldest known in the world, 
and they are all referable to one race of men ; 
and let us ask what they tell as to the position 
and character of Palseocosmic man. The testi- 
mony is here fortunately well-nigh unanimous. 
Huxley — who well compares some of the 
peculiar features of these ancient skulls and 
skeletons to those of Australians and other 
rude tribes, and of the ancient Danes of Bor- 
roby, a people not improbably allied to the 
Esthonians and Finns — remarks that the man- 
ner in which the individual heads of the most 
homogeneous rud(^ races differ from each other 
" in the same characters, though perhaps not 
to the same extent, with the Engis and Nean- 
derthal skulls, seems to me to prohibit any 



172 THE ORIGIN AXD EARLY 

cautious reasoner from affirming the latter to 
have necessarily been of distinct races." My 
own experience in American skulls, and the 
still larger experience of Dr. T\Hson, f^Hy 
confirm the wisdom of this caution. He 
adds : '^ Finallv, the comparatively large cra- 
nial capacity of the Neanderthal skull, over- 
laid though it may be hj pithecoid bony 
walls, and the completely human proportions 
of the accompanying limb-bones, together 
with the very fair development of the Engis 
skull, clearly indicate that the first traces of 
the primordial stock whence man has been 
derived need no longer be sought by those 
who entertain any form of the doctrine of 
progressive development in the newest ter- 
tiaries, but that they may be looked for in an 
ej)Och more distant from that of the Elephas 
primigenius than that is from us." If he had 
possessed the Cro-magnon and Mentone skulls 
at the time when this was written, he might 
well have said immeasurably distant from the 
time of the Elejohas primigenius. Professor 
Broca, who seems by no means disinclined to 
favor a simian origin for men, has the following 
general conclusions, which refer to the Cro- 
magnon skulls : '^ The great volume of the 



HISTORY OF MAN. 173 

brain^ the development of the frontal region^ 
the fine elliptical profile of the anterior portion 
of the skuU^ and the orthognathous form of 
the upper facial region^ are incontestable 
evidences of superiority which are met with 
usually only in the civilized races. On the 
other handj the great breadth of face, the 
alveolar prognathism, the enormous develop- 
ment of the ascending ramus of the lower 
jaw, the extent and roughness of the muscular 
insertions, especially of the masticatory muscles, 
give rise to the idea of a violent and brutal 
race." 

He adds that this apparent antithesis, seen 
also in the limbs as well as the skull, accords 
with the evidence furnished by the associated 
weapons and implements, of a rude hunter 
life, and at the same time of no mean degree 
of taste and skill in carving and other arts. 
He might have added that this is precisely 
the antithesis seen in the American tribes, 
among whom art and taste of various kinds, 
and much that is high and spiritual even in 
thought, co-existed with barbarous modes of 
life and intense ferocity and cruelty. The 
god and the demon may have been combined 
in these races, but there was nothing of the 
mere brute. 



174 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

These Palaeocosmic skeletons are^ it is true, 
but dry bones ; but by careful observation a 
strange and interesting history can be learned 
from them. They all represent a race of grand 
physical development, and of cranial capacity 
equal to that of the average modern European ; 
while the implements found with some of them 
show a state of the arts similar to that of 
the ruder tribes of American Indians, and simi- 
lar customs of burial, and probably a similar 
system of tribal and family totems, and of 
worship of Manitous or subordinate divinities. 
They are thus not merely men, but men cor- 
responding to the Turanian and American 
type, one of the most mdely spread and 
ancient of the races still existing. If ante- 
diluvian men, they thus show that these did 
not differ even varietally from Modern men, 
though of greater than average physical power, 
a property quite consistent with their existence 
in the dawn of the human period, and at a 
time when man inhabited larger continents 
than at present, and had to contend with 
more formidable animals. If their antiquity 
be conceded, they really take away all sem- 
blance of probability from the doctrine of the 
origin of man by derivation. They tell us 



HISTORY OF MAN, 175 

that primitive man had the same high cerebral 
organization which he possesses now^ and we 
may infer the same high intellectual and moral 
nature, fitting him for communion with God 
and headship over the lower world. They 
indicate also, like the mound-builders who 
preceded the North American Indian, that 
man's earlier state was the best, that he had 
been a high and noble creature before he 
became a savage. It is not conceivable that 
their great development of brain and mind 
could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a 
mere brutal and savage life. These gifts must 
be remnants of a noble organization degraded 
by moral evil. They thus justify the tradition 
of a golden and Edenic age, and mutely protest 
against the philosophy of progressive develop- 
ment as applied to man, while they bear 
witness to the identity in all important 
characters of the oldest prehistoric men with 
that variety of our species which is at the 
present day at once the most widely extended 
and the most primitive in its manners and 

usages. 

Comparisons with the Bible. 

If now we compare these facts with the 
Biblical history of man, we find certain re- 



176 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

mark able coincidences, which I shall, to save 
time, state mider a few definite propositions 
which will require but little illustration. 

1. As in the Bible record man is introduced 
in the same creative geon with the higher 
brute animals, so in geology he is united with- 
out any break to the close of the Tertiary 
period of the great mammals. We have seen 
that in Europe the existing mammals now 
contemporary with man existed in the Post- 
glacial era, and were then the contemporaries 
of many creatures now extinct either locally 
or wholly. Thus no geological break sepa- 
rates man from the Tertiary age ; and if we 
regard the Glacial period as constituting such 
a break, — which, however, it did not, — still 
this will come in long before the tune of 
man. 

2. As God is said to have prepared a place 
for man, so we find that his appearance is 
preceded by the close of the Glacial period, 
and by the removal out of his way of many 
forms of animal life. We must not under- 
stand the Bible as picturing an Eden in which 
all the animals of the world were contained. 
This kind of representation belongs only to 
nursery toy-books. It is expressly said that 



HISTORY OF MAN, 111 

man was placed in Eden with a selected group 
of animals as well as of plants, and these ani- 
mals and plants were with him to overspread 
the habitable earthy replacing everywhere 
those surviving from the Tertiary age.^ This 
is the Bible theory of the mode of introduc- 
tion of man, and it corresponds with geologi- 
cal fact, and with what we would a priori 
expect in the case of the introduction of any 
new and important type. 

3. In both records man is geologically mod- 
ern, coming at the close of the great proces- 
sion of animal life ; and it is remarkable that 
geology concurs with revelation in not finding 
any new species introduced since the creation 
of man, and only a few species can be sup- 
posed to have been introduced along with 
him. Geologically it will be observed man 
comes after the culmination of mammalian 
life in the Tertiary age, and in a time of deca- 
dence, when the fauna of the world was be- 
coming more sparse in species, and when the 
greater and nobler species were being removed. 
This corresponds precisely with the indications 
of Genesis. 

4. The oldest men whose remains have been 

* Gen. ii. 18, et seq, 
12 



178 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

found are not of a different species from mod- 
ern men J but, on the contrary , are nearly 
allied to the most widely distributed modern 
race ; while their great stature and physical 
power remind us of the nephiUm^ or giants of 
Genesis. They testify, in short, to a specific 
identity and common descent of all men ; and 
their great bodily development, accompanied 
probably with great longevity, is such as 
geological facts would lead us to anticipate in 
the case of a new type recently introduced, 
rather than in ^ one which had descended 
through a long course of struggle for exist- 
ence from an inferior ancestry. 

5. The cranial capacity of these earliest 
men shows that they were as much lords of 
creation and as little allied to brutes as their 
successors are. Further, when we place this 
fact in relation with the statement made by 
Haeckel, that, according to the latest views of 
derivation, lemurs or monkey-like animals of 
low type in the Eocene passed into apes in 
the Miocene, and these into men in the Post- 
pliocene, the contradiction between this and 
the high type of the pre-historic skulls seems 
absolute, especially when we consider the un- 
changed characters of the Turanian race from 



HISTORY OF MAN. 179 

the Palaeocosmic age to the present day. The 
image and shadow of God are reflected even 
from Palaeocosmic skulls, and they show no 
signs of affinity with brutes. 

6. The condition^ habits^ and structure of 
PaloBocosmic men correspond with the idea 
that they may be rude and barbarous offshoots 
of more cultivated tribes, and therefore realize 
as much as such remains can do the Bible his- 
tory of the fall and dispersion of antediluvian 
men. We need not suppose that Adam of the 
Bible was precisely like the old man of Cro- 
magnon. Rather may this man represent 
that fallen yet magnificent race which filled 
the antediluvian earth with violence, and prob- 
ably the more scattered and wandering tribes 
of that race rather than its greater and more 
cultivated nations. Interpreted in -this way, 
our Palaeocosmic men are precisely what we 
should expect.antediluvian men to be.^ 

Lastly. Their funeral rites and the traces of 
their religious beliefs point to a similarity with 
those of the most ancient races of men, which 
are all i^h^j traceable to corruptions of those 
primitive articles of faith revealed in the ear- 
lier part of the Hebrew Scriptures. Into this 

* See Appendix D. 



180 THE ORIGIN AND EARLY 

I cannot enter here, but may have occasion to 
refer to it in the concluding lecture of this 
course. 

In the mean time we may surely conclude 
that all the above coincidences cannot be 
accidental^ and that what we know of primi- 
tive man from geological investigation pre- 
sents no contradiction to the history of his 
origin in the Bible ; but rather gives such cor- 
roboration as warrants the expectation that, 
as our knowledge of pre-historic men increases, 
it will more and more fully bring out the 
force of those few and bold touches with 
which it has pleased God to enable his ancient 
prophets to sketch the early history of our 
species. These coincidences are the more 
remarkable when we consider the primitive 
and child-hke character of the notices in Gen- 
esis, making no scientific pretensions, and 
introducing what they tell us ot primitive man 
merely to explain and illustrate the highest 
moral and religious teachings. Truth and 
divinity are stamped on every line of the 
early chapters of Genesis, alike in their ar- 
chaic simphcity, and in that accuracy as to 
facts which enables them not only to stand 
unharmed amid the discoveries of modern 



HISTORY OF MAN. 181 

science^ but to display new beauties as we are 
able more and more fully to compare them 
with the records stored up from of old in the 
recesses of the earth. Those who base their 
hopes for the future on the glorious revela- 
tions of the Bible need not be ashamed of its 
story of the past. 



LECTURE VI. 

REVIEW OF MODERN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 



LECTURE VL 

EEYIEW OF MODERN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 



Sceptical Philosophies. — Materialistic Science. — • 
Evolutionist Archeology. — Modified Christian- 
ity. 

T PROPOSE in this concluding lecture to no- 
tice some of the errors and partial truths^ 
respecting our subject^ that are more or less 
current, and to inquire wherein they are false 
or defective, and how they are to be treated. 
I may take as a motto a remarkable saying of 
our Lord to the Sadducees of his day : '^ Ye do 
err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power 
of God." Jesus was always more tender with 
the Sadducees than with the Pharisees. He 
evidently regarded an honest sceptic as more 
estimable than a ritualist, and even a little 
science as a better thing than a mere round of 
hypocritical performances ; and this tender- 
ness is apparent in the mild rebuke which I 



# 



186 REVIEW OF MODERN 

have quoted ; and which I think well charac- 
terizes the scientific infidelity . of our day. 
Men err in judgment from not knowing the 
Scriptures^ and so attribute to them doctrines 
which are really not those of the Bible. They 
err from not knowing, or rather not having 
distinct conceptions of, the being and power of 
God. Their want of knowledge may proceed 
from inadvertence, or from want of oppor- 
tunity, or perhaps from a natural dislike to 
higher truth, or an incapacity to perceive it. 
Much, however, of their error is due, I fear, to 
the imperfect presentation of truth by those 
who know it, and to the false glosses and bad 
morals of the Pharisees. 

Sceptical Philosophies. 

It is to be observed, in the first place, that 
a large part of the opposition to religion attrib- 
uted to science really proceeds from a philos- 
ophy which has little connection with science, 
and which I would therefore mention merely 
in its relation to the views of scientific men. 
The philosophies of Herbert Spencer and of 
John Stuart Mill, for example, though diverse 
from each other, lie at the foundation of much 
of this, as it appears in England and in this 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 187 

country. Neither of them is in precise accord 
v/ith science any more than with the Bible. 
Both philosophies agree in relegating God to 
the domain of the unknowable, or at least of 
the unknown, though in different ways ; but 
in so far as they are related to science, they 
proceed from this point in very different 
paths. Spencer takes a constructive method^ 
and, assuming matter and forces, proceeds by 
a skilful use of analogy to assure us that these 
can successively produce all forms of being. 
But this constructive method is the very oppo- 
site of that of true science, however it may be 
supported by illustrations taken from scientific 
facts. It postulates in the first place certain 
self-existing forces and atoms of matter, or 
both, endowed with certain powers, and, in- 
stead of diminishing the mystery of existence, 
forces it back and concentrates it on these 
atoms or forces, which, if not produced by an 
intelligent Creator, are far more wonderful 
and inexplicable than the arrangements for 
which they are supposed to account. Its 
argument, after the assumption of the almost 
omnipotent resources claimed for matter and 
force, is after all merely an argument of anal- 
ogy and not of the inductive character required 



188 REVIEW OF MODERN 

in science. If scientific men are captivated 
with this philosophy^ I beheve this is due prin- 
cipally to its gorgeous generalizations^ and the 
profuse use it makes of comparisons based on 
scientific facts. For this very reason, its in- 
fluence in discouraging true science and in 
tempting to vague speculations has been of 
the most marked character, and has vitiated 
too much both of the original investigation 
and scientific education of our time. 

Mill, on the contrary, in holding that all 
knowledge is only relative and phenomenal, 
and that causation is merely invariable se- 
quence, cuts at the roots of our belief both in 
matter and force ; and in this way throws 
doubt on all that science would regard as the 
essence of things, leaving us as destitute of a 
basis for our knowledge of nature as for our 
knowledge of God. It is, however, only just 
to say that in his essay on Theism, his latest 
work, published only after his death, he bears 
what, from his point of view, must be consid- 
ered a most remarkable testimony to the 
power and the word of God. Discarding as 
valueless the a priori argument for the exist- 
ence of God, he regards as the only valid ar- 
gument that from design, and shows that this 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 189 

is really of an inductive character^ and of no 
mean force when considered in the case of the 
more complex animal structures, as for in- 
stance the eye, to which he specially refers as 
indicating design. As already observed, in 
preferring the argument from design, he 
closely agrees with Scripture, which uses that 
argument alone in those passages in which it 
reasons on the subject, as for example in the 
concluding chapters of Job, and in the first 
chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Eomans. It 
is certainly a remarkable coincidence that the 
only way in which Paul thinks the heathen 
could, without revelation, attain to the knowl- 
edge of God, is precisely that which the scep- 
tical English philosopher singles out as the 
only argument valid to his mind. 

On the other hand, he regards the principle 
of the survival of the fittest, as held by evo- 
lutionists, as a ^^ startling dinA prima facie im- 
probability," and will only admit that '' it is 
not so absurd as it looks, and that the analo- 
gies which have been discovered by experi- 
ence, favorable to its possibility, far exceed 
what any one would have supposed before- 
hand.'' This is, I think, from his point of 
view, a fair estimate of the value of evolution 



190 REVIEW OF MODERN 

as a means of accountino; for omanic struct- 
ures and species ; and the value of the analo- 
gies^ when examined scientifically, is even less 
than Mill imagined. It is to be hoped that 
this estimate of evolution, on the part of a 
thinker so severe and logical as Mill, will have 
its weight with the younger scientific men, 
who are so easily deluded with the brilliant 
phantoms of Spencerianism. 

It is true that Mill was, even at the last, to 
such an extent ignorant of the power of God 
that he affirms that, in so far as the natural 
argument goes, it fails to prove omnipotence. 
He can believe only in a God of limited re- 
sources. On this point, however, it is very 
questionable if the details on which he relies 
to prove imperfection in nature have any such 
significance, and in so far as Scripture is con- 
cerned he does not take into the account the 
explanations which it gives. For example, 
(1) the incompleteness of our knowledge of 
God's plans, for '^ his thoughts are very deep ; 
— his ways are unsearchable;" or (2) the 
necessary imperfection of created things and 
their incomplete reflection of their Maker, for 
the works of nature are not in themselves like 
God, but, on the contrary, in their essence 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 191 

and modes of existence diverse -from Him ; or 
(3) the compensations which are in God's 
power^ as, for example, when he overrules 
physical evil for moral good ; or (4) the im- 
perfection arising from the introduction of 
sin; or (5) the progressive development of 
God's plans in history, and the impossibility 
of discerning all their scope at any one point 
of time. 

The German pantheists endeavor to combine 
these realistic and idealistic philosophies in the 
conception of a universal, all-pervading Cosmos, 
neither spiritual nor natural, neither God nor 
matter nor force, yet including all; and 
developing all things from, itself to return 
into it again. This, however, though having 
roots both in theology and philosophy, is an 
idea foreign to physical and natural science. 
I mention these theories merely to say that 
they do not belong specially to my subject, any 
further than they aid in producing the actual 
state of mind in which we find scientific men. 

Materialistic Science. 

Passing to the materialistic science of the 
time, we may take as an example of this a 
production which has excited much attention, 



192 REVIEW OF MODERN 

not SO much oti its own account as on account 
of the quarter whence it emanates^ and the 
state of the scientific mind which it indicates 
or supposes, — the recent address of Professor* 
Tyndall as President of the British Association. 
In its aspect with reference to Scripture, 
this address is first of all remarkable for its 
ignoring altogether the position of the Bible 
with respect to nature, and neglecting to 
acknowledge the obligations of science to God's 
Word. Truly stating the low and superstitious 
conception of nature, which led to the poly- 
theism of antiquity, Tyndall gives credit to 
the atomic philosophy of Democritus and Epi- 
curus for raising their contemporaries to a 
higher conception of the unity of nature, and 
he calls their philosophy science, which it was 
not in the modern sense of the term. But he 
omits to state that, long before these Greek 
philosophers, Moses had established in the 
Pentateuch the idea of the unity of nature, 
and this on a basis which has lasted to our 
own time and overspread the whole civilized 
world ; while the Epicurean philosophy failed 
to root out the idolatries of Greece, and failed 
to leave any impress on later ages. Histori- 
cally, it is a fact that one Paul of Tarsus, a 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 193 

disciple of Moses and of Christy had to preach 
to the Epicureans of Athens^ as late as the 
first century of our era, the doctrine of the 
unity of God, of nature, and of man ; and that 
Athens, standing in the midst of its idols, could 
only, like Spencer and Mill and Tyndall, bow 
before an '' unknown God," till Christianity 
had overthrown both Stoicism and Epicurean- 
ism. Still more unfairly, Tyndall, while thus 
leaving out of sight the cosmogony of Scripture, 
attributes to the Bible and to Christ those 
bigotries of the middle ages which were due 
to ignorance of the Bible and to anti- Christian 
superstition. Let us hope that in this he errs, 
not knowing the Scripture. 

Tyndall ascribes science to an impulse 
whereby, '^ in a process of abstraction from ex- 
perience, we form physical theories which lie 
beyond the pale of experience, but which 
satisfy the desire of the mind to see every 
natural occurrence resting on a cause." He is 
willing, however, to gratify this natural desire 
only to a certain length. He traces back all 
material things to atoms having certain definite 
properties ; but as soon as we venture to ask 
w^hence these atoms, and why their properties, 

he peremptorily says : " Hitherto shalt thou 

13 



194 REVIEW OF MODERN 

come^ and no further." This is his ultimate 
dogma^ without reason or cause. So when we 
inquire as to f orce^ he is willing that we should 
correlate f orces, assign laws to gravitation^ and 
decide that heat is' a "mode of motion;" but 
we must inquire no further. So if we inquire 
as to consciousness and will and other phe- 
nomena of mind^ he may tell us that these are 
functions of brain ; but though he quotes 
Democritus to the effect that mind may be 
composed of " smooth round atoms/' he is un- 
wilUng that we should satisfy our desire to 
assign things to causes any further than the 
anatomist's knife can carry us. There is no 
more science in this than in the statement of 
the old physicists that water rises in an empty 
tube because nature abhors a vacuum. 

So in his attempt to advocate evolution 
on scientific grounds^ while he freely admits 
that to believe this dogma fully we must 
" radically change our notions of matter/' — 
that is^ must transfer to matter the powers of 
mindj — he attempts to illustrate the doctrine 
by the supposed development of the eye. 
He supposes first a disturbance of chemical 
processes in the animal organism similar to 
those which light causes in the plant;, — a sup- 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 195 

position chemically untrue. But^ granting 
this, lie next supposes pigment cells. The 
eye^ he says, is then '' incipient^ but it is only 
capable of distinguishing between light and 
shade ; while^ contrary to fact, the pigment 
cells are supposed to be the seat of this sen- 
sitiveness and no mention is made of the nerve 
matter. " The adjustment continues/' we 
are told, " and there is a bulging of the 
epidermis over the pigment cells/' — -why, we 
are not told. A lens is now " incipient; " and, 
through the '^ operation of infinite adjustments, 
the organ may reach the perfection of the eye 
of an eagle." But this is not science. It is 
only vague speculation, and he well concludes 
with the remarkable statement : '^ In fact the 
whole process of evolution is the manifesta- 
tion of a power absolutely unsearchable to 
the intellect of man. As little in our day as 
in the days of Job can man by searching 
find this power.^ Considered fundamentally, 
then, it is by the operation of an insoluble 
mystery that life on earth is evolved, species 

* The quotation is unfortunate ; for Job was a tlieist, and 
his question reads : " Canst thou find out the deep things of 
God 7 canst thou find out the Almigiity to perfection ? It is 
high as heaven ; what canst thou do 1 deeper than hades ; 
what canst thou know '? " 



196 REVIEW OF MODERN 

differentiated, and mind unfolded, from their 
prepotent elements in the immeasurable past." 
We may well apply here to Tyndall the latter 
part of our Saviour's reproof : ^^ You err, not 
knowing the power of God." It is further to 
be observed that in the conclusion of this 
statement, as well as in the apology or vindi- 
cation which he has published subsequently to 
the address, Tyndall is driven to take up 
ground which is actually that of the pantheists, 
whose doctrines he would no doubt altogether 
rejoudiate. His position thus obliges him to 
oscillate between materialism and pantheism, 
and to present a strange aspect of inconsistency ; 
whereas if he were content to follow up the 
adjustments of nature to a designing Creator, 
all-pervading yet personal, omnipotent yet 
acting by law, his science would fall at once 
into harmony with theism and with the Bible, 
without requiring him to submit in the smallest 
degree to the superstitions and ecclesiastical 
tyranny which he seems so cordially to detest. 
A second phase of apparent antagonism of 
science to Scripture is that which concerns the 
origin of life and organization. The doctrine 
of " archebiosis," as it has been called, which 
implies the spontaneous generation of living 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 197 

organisms from dead matter^ has recently re- 
ceived some apparent support from the bulky 
volumes of Bastian on the " Beginnings of 
Life ; " but the greatest doubts have been 
thrown upon the validity of his experiments 
by Sanderson^ Huxley^ and others^ and even 
a cursory survey of his statements and illus- 
trations leads to the conviction that his work 
has not been sufficiently careful and accurate 
to afford trustworthy results. We have al- 
ready considered this theory of archebiosis^ 
in relation to the scriptural account of the 
creation of animals. It now presents itself in 
antagonism to theism in general. It has not^ 
however, as yet received the authentication of 
facts in any actual experiment. 

Huxley himself, as we have already seen, 
by his doctrine of protoplasm as a physical 
basis of life, really dispenses with vitality as a 
distinct force or modification of force, as much 
as Bastian, and would remove all difficulty in 
supposing the origin of living things without 
any creative act. Further, in his recent 
paper on Animal Automatism, he goes as far as 
possible, without directly reaching it, toward 
the conclusion that the animal and even the 
human organization is a self-regulating ma- 



198 REVIEW OF MODERN 

chine^ requiring no special vital or mental 
force to secure its actions and results. The 
doctrine of protoplasm has, however, been 
thoroughly canvassed by Beale ; and the dis- 
tinction between living, dead, and formed 
protoplasm clearly defined. Indeed, the. posi- 
tion of Huxley here has been illogical from 
the first ; for, while attributing to protoplasm, 
or mere albuminous matter, the properties of 
life, and ridiculing the idea of a vital forcer, he 
was of necessity obliged constantly to refer 
to living protoplasm and dead protoplasm as 
quite distinct in properties, while denying in 
his hypothesis that any such distinction could 
exist. In reviving the Cartesian doctrine of 
animal automatism, Huxley has well illustrated 
some very remarkable physiological facts, 
which rightly understood throw some light on 
the debatable ground between the merely 
physical and the immaterial. More especially 
they illustrate that nice balancing of the parts 
of the bodily machine which enables a stimulus 
infinitesimally small from without or within to 
put it in motion, and help us to conceive how 
mind force, though in itself destitute of mate- 
rial potency, can act on the material organism. 
Dr. Carpenter, in his " Mental Physiology," 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 199 

has treated these facts in a more scientific 
spirit, and has shown that they imply the action 
of mind as well as of matter. So f ar, there- 
fore, we cannot say that physiology, any more 
than physical science, is committed to the side 
of materialism, or can relieve us from the 
necessity of that spiritual world to which the 
Bible refers us. 

It is, however, deserving of notice, as an 
example of- ignorance or misrepresentation of 
Scripture, that Huxley in the address to the 
British Association, in which he so strongly 
dissented from Bastian's conclusions, took oc- 
casion to ascribe to the scriptural waiters a 
belief in spontaneous generation, or at least 
in transmutation of species, in common, as he 
said, with many other ancient authorities. 
His evidence as to this was the reference by 
the Apostle Paul to the germination of a grain 
of wheat, in illustration of the resurrection. 
" That which thou sowest, thou sowest not 
the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it 
may be of wheat or some other grain : but 
God giveth it a body, according as he pleases, 
and to each kind of seed a body of its own." 
It seems difficult to see here any kind of doc- 
trine of spontaneous generation, and indeed 



200 BE VIEW OF MODERN 

the whole argument is of the opposite sort. 
Paul had affirmed that the grain of wheat is 
not quickened except it die^ — a vivid way of 
putting the plain truth that the mass of the 
seed perishes in favor of the little^ almost 
invisible germ of life which it contains^ and 
which springs up as a new body. He next 
says that God determines the body it shall 
have^ and this not arbitrarily^ but in accord- 
ance with his own law of constant reproduc- 
tion, — "^^to every seed its own body/' accord- 
ing to the kind of seed it may be. There 
is no room here for heterogenesis : and if it 
were possible either that something not a seed 
should produce a new body, or that wheat 
should produce tares or tares wheat, the argu- 
ment would be altogether invalidated ; for it 
is the germ of spiritual life existing in the 
man here that must grow up, and this accord- 
ing to its kind, in the future completion of 
the spiritual life. Paul, in short, most per- 
fectly agrees with Moses that God created 
plants according to their species, otherwise his 
illustration might go to show that a wicked 
man might rise in the resurrection as a right- 
eous one, or the reverse, which would of course 
entirely subvert his whole argument, as well 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 201 

as the whole tendency of Bible theology from 
Genesis to Revelation^ which makes a man's 
character and conduct in this world the sole 
tests of what will happen to him in the next. 
We thus fail to secure as yet any material- 
istic solution of the beginning of life ; and. till 
we can succeed in this, we need not inquire 
as to how far any discovery of physical causes 
for the origination of living beings would 
modify our views of theology. It is evident 
also that the question of derivation of one 
species from another is comparatively of sec- 
ondary importance ; and in its scriptural as- 
pect relates chiefly to the meaning we are to 
attach to the views of mediate creation given 
in Gen. i., and to the force to be attached to 
the expression, " after its kind/' relatively to 
the views which natural science may settle as 
to the limits of species. These points we have 
already discussed, and also to some extent the 
more important questions as to the origin of 
man. 

Evolutionist Arcliceology. 

It may be well, however, to notice the man- 
ner in which the presumed origin of man from 
lower animals is followed out by writers of 



202 REVIEW OF MODERN 

various schools of archseology in their specula- 
tions on primitive culture and religion. Tylor, 
Lu]3bock^ and others in England, and their 
followers in this country, proceed constantly 
on the assumption that all human culture is to 
be traced back into a period of pre-historic 
darkness in which man had scarcely emerged 
from a brutal condition. In short, they neither 
admit the scriptural account of the origin of 
man and of his religion, nor do they admit the 
power of God to create a being in his own 
likeness. These men, ignorant like the Sad- 
ducees of the Scriptures and of the power of 
God, claim for their speculations the rank of a 
science, and, deducing all that is noblest in 
humanity from all that is lowest, dispense at 
once with God and religion, and destroy all the 
grandest historical traditions of our race. As 
a student of nature, I confess I have less re- 
spect for them than for the mere physicists 
and physiologists, who at least collect facts 
and interrogate nature in an earnest and scien- 
tific manner, and are less animated by a mean 
spirit of detraction from the higher aspects 
of humanity. 

These men derive all religion from myths, 
trace back Sacrifice and prayer to merely 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 203 

human relations among savages, resolve the 
belief in immortality into the result of dreams, ' 
and the idea of God into a fanciful ascription 
of " animism " to dead objects. If their con- 
clusions had any scientific value, they would 
be much more destructive of scriptural and 
rational theology than any thing arising from 
physical or natural science can be. Fortu- 
nately they do not come within the limits of 
true inductive science, but rather constitute a 
sort of new and debased mythology, founded 
on certain scientific and historical facts, clothed 
in the garb of fanciful speculation. They have 
in them, however, an element of truth which 
becomes manifest when we compare them 
with the simple theology of the early chapters 
of Genesis, and with the crude beliefs that 
have replaced true religion in the minds of 
the lower and more isolated races of men, 
and they are worthy of notice here, if for no 
other reason, because they tend to give a new 
importance to the study of these '' unwritten " 
religions of the world, and to their compar- 
ison with the earlier stages of divine reve- 
lation. 

We may take, as an example of their treat- 
ment of religion, the instinct of immortality, 



204^ REVIEW OF MODERN 

which it is admitted is universal among men. 
This is quietly attributed to the fact that men 
dream of their dead friends or enemies^ and 
thus have everywhere come to believe in their 
continued existence after death. It is evident, 
however, that this is merely a convenient eva- 
sion of a difficult fact. Men in a rude and 
primitive state dream little. They are much 
more likely to dream of affairs that concern 
themselves than of their dead friends, and such 
dreams are likely to be only occasional and 
exceptional. Nor is there so close a connec- 
tion between such dreams and the future life 
of the dead as to make the belief universal. 
It is much more likely that the belief proceeds 
from some cause belonging to the primitive 
state of man, and perhaps coeval with his 
origin. The Bible gives us a more logical 
solution. Man was originally immortal, and 
it was consequently a part of his nature to 
cherish the hope of an undying life. When 
he lost the gift of immortality, he had a hope 
held out to him of its restoration, and this 
hope necessarily lies at the foundation of all 
the religions of humanity, and is the last part 
of religion which remains in the midst of its 
corruption and decay. Wherever we find this 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 205 

belief^ under however corrupt and degenerate 
forms^ we should respect it as a relic of primi- 
tive faith, nay more^ as a primitive instinct or 
intuition depending on the original immortality 
of man, and should not with the sceptic rele- 
gate it to the domain of mere myth and fancy. 
Christian writers have often been false to the 
Bible and to the cause of truth in their treat- 
ment of such old beliefs. Let us sift from 
them the errors with which they are mixed^ 
and retain the golden grains of truth. 

Sceptical writers of this school often make 
another strange mistake or wilful misrepresen- 
tation, in the opposite direction^ in denying 
the existence of the doctrine of a future state 
in the Old Testament, while they admit its oc- 
currence in the rudest heathenisms. Now it 
is true that this doctrine is little insisted on in 
the Old Testament, because it was an instinct 
already implanted in men's minds, and because 
it had been made immoral use of by priests, 
who pretended by their rites and ceremonies 
to give bad men a passport into future happi- 
ness. The proj)hets of the Old Testament 
denied, not the reality of a future state, but the 
power of priests and external forms to give 
wicked men a claim to its happiness, and they 



206 REVIEW OF MODERN 

insisted more on a holy life in this world^ and 
on the doctrine of the present and immediate 
chastisement of God's people for their sins^ — 
a doctrine also of the New Testament^ and 
perhaps to be more inculcated than it now is. 
But the promise of salvation made to Adam, 
the promise to Abraham, the Messianic doc- 
trine, the system of sacrificial atonement, and 
a hundred incidental references, show that, as 
our Saviour said, the God of the Old Testa- 
ment " is not the God of the dead, but of the 
living." If life and immortality are said to 
be brought to light by Christ, this is not that 
they are initiated, but more clearly and plainly 
made known. 

The offences of this school of writers against 
truth go, however, yet farther. Another re- 
lates to the belief in God. Primitive man, if 
destitute of knowledge of God, feels for him 
in nature. Paul argues that human reason so 
seeking for God can discover his power and 
his divinity, and holds that the true God is 
not far from every one of us. The modern 
school of archaeology maintains that man first 
deifies and personifies all objects around him, 
and only by slow and painful steps attains to 
polytheism or pantheism, and in a higher stage 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 207 

of culture reaches to imaginations and senti- 
ments respecting a Supreme God ; while at a 
still higher stage he comes with Spencer and 
Mill to find that he was mistaken^ and that 
after all no such being can be found or known. 
But this is wholly conjecture. Perhaps there 
is an historical basis for monotheism^ as well as 
for a future state. How does it stand in the 
Bible ? Have any of us ever endeavored to 
realize the theology of Adam, and what it 
would be to hear the voice of God in the 
evening breeze in the trees of Eden, and to 
learn from that and our own consciousness 
his nature and unity ? Or if we cannot 
clearly conceive this, let us add to it those 
strange words, that sound like an echo from 
Eden, which Paul spoke on the Acropolis of 
Athens, — " that they should seek God, if 
haply they might feel after him, and find him, 
though he be not far from any one of us : for 
in him we live, and move, and have our 
being." Let us suppose this to be the sum 
total of our theology, and then think how 
easily out of this the mind of humanity might 
develop in the course of the ages all the more 
rude beliefs that have ever existed in the 
world; every one of them containing this 



208 REVIEW OF MODERN 

much of theology with various additions and 
under different modifications, 
r Or let us suppose that we possess in a tradi- 
tional form the story of creation and of the 
fallj and this alone. Let us think of the plu- 
ral Elohim with attributes of unity, and cre- 
ating by his vivifying breath or Spirit and by 
his almighty Word ; of the golden age of 
Eden ; of the fall and the promised Saviour, 
the coming one, the Jehovah. Now let us go 
forth with this as our sole treasure of divine 
knowledge, and idealize it into a triple God, 
and deify the God-given woman, the first 
mother, as an Astarte, an Isis, an Artemis, or 
Atahensic, and worship as the coming Saviour 
every great hero and benefactor, whether a 
Vishnu or Osiris, a Hercules or Apollo, or an 
American Yoskeka. Here we have again the 
germ of the more complex religions. Moses 
has given us in the old Bible story, and pur- 
posely, no doubt, the substance of the whole. 
It is pretended by some of the writers of 
the school now under consideration, in oppo- 
sition to an historical basis for primitive relig- 
ions, that traditions cannot survive for any 
long time. They forget, however, that a tra- 
ditional belief, interwoven with men's hopes 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 209 

and fearSj becomes a part of their nature^, and 
is preserved and transmitted after the facts on 
which it is based are quite forgotten. So a 
tradition incorporated into the songs of a peo- 
ple^ or crystallized in some short and easily 
learned form of words^ may become as perma- 
nent as if inscribed on granite. Traditions 
are like footprints on the sand. They are 
usually effaced by the next tide^ but geolo- 
gists know that^ buried under sediments and 
hardened into rock^ they may take their place 
among the most imperishable monuments of 
the earth's crust, and may exist unimpaired 
long after the bones of the animals that pro- 
duced them have mouldered into dust. 

Why cannot we teach these truths to mod- 
ern heathens as Paul did to their predecessors 
at Athens ? One of the reasons which have 
induced me to dwell a little on them here, is 
to indicate a biblical method of dealing with 
the pseudo-science of the evolutionist archaa- 
ology, which has grown up to so great propor- 
tions, especially in Germany and England, and 
which; from the interest that attaches to its 
vast agglomerations of facts and fancies, is 
pervading all our literature. 



210 REVIEW OF MODERN 

Modified Christianity. 

It is a relief to turn from these writers 
to men like Max Miiller and Kingsley, who, 
though feeble-kneed in orthodoxy and amena- 
ble to some extent to the charge of not well 
knowing the Scriptures and the power of God, 
have at least some regard for the religious 
beliefs of mankind, and are not tied to the car 
of the evolutionary Juggernaut which is crush- 
ing the brain and heart alike of science and 
theology. 

Max Miiller, in his lectures on the '^ Science 
of Religion," and Kingsley, in his pleasant if 
superficial lectures on " Superstition and Sci- 
ence," have given us some thoughts sugges- 
tive beyond the applications they make of 
them, with a reference to which I may fitly 
close these lectures. 

MuUer, in attempting to classify religions, 
objects to the distinction of natural from 
revealed religions, on the ground that no 
religion is purely natural, and that revealed 
religion should include the elements of what 
is natural. He further objects that revealed 
religion would be taken to include only the 
religion of the Bible, while all other religions 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 211 

would be relegated to the domain of natural 
religion. Miiller's conclusion here is in per- 
fect harmony with the teachings of the Bible, 
but his reason for arriving at it shows that he 
does not fully apprehend the matter in ques- 
tion. Natural religion in the view of the Bible 
would include all that appertains to the origi- 
nal image of God in man and all the knowl- 
edge of the power and divinity of God which 
man can learn from nature. This should and 
does more or less exist in every religion what- 
ever, and on many of these points, as we have 
already seen, heathen religions occupy com- 
mon ground with the Bible. On the other 
hand, divine revelation to man gives him those 
higher spiritual truths which he cannot learn 
for himself ; and since, according to the Bible, 
such revelation began in the time of the first 
man, and was continued more or less in all the 
following generations, this also must enter in 
some degree into every form of religion. The 
elements of natural and revealed religion are 
therefore to be found side by side everywhere, 
and it is for this reason that no religion is 
wholly natural or wholly revealed, and that 
no religion is wholly false. 

The classification which Miiller adopts of 



212 REVIEW OF MODERN 

religions into three divisions, corresponding 
to the three great groups of languages, — the 
Turanian, the Aryan, and the Semitic, — is 
more in accordance, as far as it goes, with 
Bible history than he seems to be aware. 
The Turanian religions are universally re- 
garded as the most simple and primitive, and 
they still exist in full force among the ruder 
American and North Asiatic tribes, and in 
more refined form in the oldest religion of 
China. What are these religions ? They 
include a belief in immortality, often developed 
into a worship of ancestors, a recognition of a 
God in nature, sometimes as a Great Spirit 
and Creator, often with a generally diffused 
deification of nature. These elements lie at 
the basis of the Aryan and Semitic religions 
as welL What are they all but more or less 
disintegrated remnants of that primitive faith 
in God and an immortal life which we find in 
the early chapters of Genesis, — a more or less 
corrupt survival of antediluvian and patri- 
archal religion ? The religion of the Aryan 
races, as we have it in the ancient mythologies 
of India and Greece, must have sprung from 
a faith akin to that of the Turanians, but 
further developed. It begins with the idea of 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 213- 

a Heaven-father^ or supreme god^ Dyauspitar^ 
Zeus-pater or Jupiter^ whose name Miiller 
compares with the Christian invocation, " Our 
Father in Heaven/' and whose attributes are 
distinctly related to some of those of the true 
God. It goes on to add to this various me- 
diatorial and sacrificial ideas, connected with 
a series of principal gods and deified heroes 
amalgamated with old nature-gods or mani- 
tous. It is, in short, aboriginal theism run 
wild into a labyrinth of subordinate mediators 
and intercessors, and divorced by a corrupt 
anthropomorphism from the higher moral 
aspects of religion. The Semitic religions, if 
we except that of the Jews, followed a similar 
course of development, except that they clung 
closer to monotheism, and to the human rather 
than the physical elements of religion. Hence 
a higher and grander character even in the 
Semitic heathenism. The relation of this to 
the Hebrew monotheism is very close, even in 
the name of God ; El, or Eloah, or Elohim, 
being prevalent throughout. 

Thus the Hebrew Scriptures combine the 
elements of the whole of the ancient religions, 
and though they denounce the corruptions by 
which heathens worshipped the creature rather 



214 REVIEW OF MODERN 

than the Creator, they are willing to acknowl- 
edge the remnants of truth which corrupt 
religions contain, as we find in Paul's speech 
at Athens and in his Epistle to the Romans. 
^' Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, 
we ought not to think that the godhead is 
like unto gold or silver or stone graven by 
art and man's device. Howbeit those past 
times of ignorance God hath overlooked, but 
now he commandeth all men everywhere to 
repent." ^ ''- Although they knew God, they 
glorified him not as God," and so were given 
up to all base idolatries and evil ways. Still 
" when the Gentiles Avho have no law do by 
nature the works of the law," and obey the 
dictates of their conscience according to the 
light they have, they will be so far justified 
" in that day when God shall judge the secret 
counsels of men." f This is the true spirit of 
biblical archseology, and it should be applied 
to the interpretation of all the traditional 
beliefs of mankind, rather than the fanciful 
theory of nature-myths. 

What I mean may be farther illustrated by 
a familiar example. One of the earliest and 
most wide-spread idolatries is the worship of a 

* Acts xvii. t Romans ii. 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 215 

female deity — Ishtar, Astarte, or Isis — mother 
of men, or of a Saviour hero, or of both. The 
root of this must have been in a tradition 
similar to our story of Eve and of the fall, and 
not, as often alleged, in a deification of the 
moon or of night. ^ The naturalness of the 
idea is seen in the wide-spread modern adora- 
tion of the Virgin Mary as the mother of God, 
which has precisely the same relation to the 
Gospel story of the nativity that the okter 
worship bears to the story of the fall ; and just 
as the older female deities were associated in 
their worship with heaven and the heavenly 
bodies, with seasons of the year and wath 
sacred places, so is the more modern goddess, 
and but for the historical facts, it would be 
quite easy to reduce the Virgin Queen of 
Heaven to a nature myth. Even those who 
reject all historical grounds for the ancient 
idolatries, and who ridicule what they are 
pleased to term " euhemerism," cannot deny the 
historical basis of the adoration of the virgin, 

* A remarkable vindication of this view has been recently 
afforded by Smith's translations of the Chaldean account of the 
deluge, in which Ishtar is represented as pleading for her children, 
" I have begotten man, and let him not like the sons of the fishes 
fill the sea." The writer of this old legend was clearly a *' eu- 
hemerist,'' and identified Ishtar with Eve. 



216 REVIEW OF MODERN 

or fail to see the analogy which it presents to 
the worships derived^ according to the Bible, 
from the story of Eve. 

I have endeavored to show that the so- 
called science of religion, in so far as there is 
any true science in it, really brings us back 
to the religion of the Bible ; because there 
seems room to fear that, in these times of 
atheistic literature, such loose and partial and 
at the same time attractive views as those of 
Miiller may gain a currency to which they are 
not entitled, unless with such qualifications 
and explanations as those above suggested. 

An interesting view of the relations of 
science to superstition on the one hand, and 
religion on the other, may be obtained from 
the lectures of Canon Kingsley above referred 
to. He defines superstition to be an un- 
reasoning fear of the unknown, and very 
cleverly traces the steps by which ignorant 
and barbarous peoples may come to dread the 
supposed demons of the storm, the rapid or 
the landslip, and to attach superstitious rever- 
ence to animals and plants. No doubt this is 
a large and fertile source, if not the principal 
source, of superstition ; and this accords with 
what we have already seen of the use of the- 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT, 217 

early chapters of Genesis in opposing such 
tendencies. He shows how superstition may 
be remedied by a better knowledge of natural 
laws derived from science ; and no doubt there 
is much truth in this^ since, so soon as men 
learn that natural processes depend on in- 
variable and ascertainable laws, they learn 
also to hope for mastery of nature and cease 
to dread the evils which they can avert. He 
fails, however, to observe that there are many 
natural sources of pain and evil which no 
science, however perfect, has hitherto suc- 
ceeded in overcoming, and that a boundless 
extent of the dreaded unknown must ever 
surround the little circle of light in which 
science enables us to stand. This can only be 
finally overcome by the conviction that the 
unknown is in the hand of a God who is our 
Father and cares for us. This revelation of 
God to man must ever encircle with its 
infinite embrace the limited sphere of science. 
In his lecture on Science he contrasts the 
fear of the superstitious with the boldness of 
the man who interrogates nature and seeks to 
pry into her secrets. He singles out the races 
and men who have thus boldly asserted the 
mastery of man over nature, and justly gives 



218 REVIEW OF MODERN 

the first place to the ^^ Old Jews." Sketching 
the superstitions of Egypt and Canaan^ from 
which they emerged^, he says there were 
among them a few men — " sages, prophets 
— who denounced superstition and the dread 
of nature as the parent of all manner of vice 
and misery, who said that they discovered in 
the universe an order, a unity, a permanence 
of law, which gave them courage instead of 
fear. They found delight and not dread in 
the thought that the universe obeyed a law 
which could not be broken ; that all things 
continued to that day according to a certain 
ordinance. They took a view of nature totally 
new in that age — healthy, human, cheerful, 
loving, trustful, and yet reverent — identical 
with that which is beginning to prevail in our 
own day. They defied those volcanic and 
meteoric phenomena to which their country- 
men were slaying their children in the clefts 
of the rocks, and, like Theophrastus's supersti- 
tious man, pouring their drink-offerings to the 
smooth stones of the valley, and declared they 
would not fear, though the earth was moved, 
and though the hills were carried into the 
midst of the sea." He adds " that no nation 
has succeeded in perpetuating a school of in- 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 219 

ductive physical science save those whose 
minds have been saturated with these same 
views of nature which they have — as an 
historic fact — slowly but thoroughly learnt 
from the historical writings of the Jewish 
sages." 

We have already seen how true all this is ; 
but it suggests two questions to which Kings- 
ley does not ref er^ in deference perhaps to the 
unbelief of a portion of his Eoyal Institution 
audience. Of what use would such courage 
and conviction be if there were not a paternal 
God beyond the volcano^ the earthquake and 
the storm^ who could and would overrule for 
the good of his children those terrible agen- 
cies ? The second is^ how did the Jew more 
than other men learn all this^ and may it not 
have been that God^ in his grace and mercy, 
revealed these great and glorious truths to the 
prophets who taught them ? If not, why did 
not the Jew himself go on to build on theism 
the vast fabric of science which has grown up 
among modern Christian nations ? The only 
possible answers to these questions bring us 
back to the glorious old truth that all true 
science^, as well as true religion, must emanate 
from the Father of lights, and from that 



220 REVIEW OF MODERN 

Divine Word wliicli^ coming into the world, 
lightens every man. 

It is not necessary that I should refer here 
to the many great and good men, our contem- 
poraries, who have held fast to the truth of 
God's word while exploring the mysteries of 
nature, or who have rejoiced to magnify 
God's works which men behold, while di- 
recting others to his higher spiritual revela- 
tion. Such men — men of faith, knowledge, 
and action — God has highly magnified by giv- 
ing them the chief places in science, in philos- 
ophy, and in his own spiritual kingdom ; by 
giving them power to benefit their fellow- 
men, and to live in their grateful remem- 
brance. May we follow in their footsteps, 
and enjoy in our own experience the com- 
bined blessings of faith and science. It has 
been weU said, ^^If men of piety were also 
men of science, and if men of science were to 
read the Scriptures, there would be more faith 
on the earth and also more philosophy." Let 
us hope that this is to be more and more 
realized in the time to come. 

I have now endeavored to sketch, however 
roughly and imperfectly, the various shades 
of ignorance and half knowledge of the Scrip- 



SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 221 

tures and of the power of God now prevalent, 
from the dark negation of Spencer and Mill 
up to the modified Christianity of Mtiller and 
Kingsley, ^ and have endeavored to bring out 
in contrast to these the grand and sim23le con- 
sistency of the Word of God, which in its 
assertion of unity, order, and design in nature, 
strikes the key-note of all true science and 
philosophy, and, in its power for the regenera- 
tion of man and his return to the family of 
God, contains all that can make human knowl- 
edge really valuable for the true happiness of 
our species. If the Bible does all this in a 
way plain, historical, and progressive, and 
through the means of successive prophets in 
the lapse of ages, this is a method more con- 
sonant with the procedure of God in nature, 
and more suited to the condition of man than 
any other. And, finally, I may state, as the 
conclusion of the whole matter, that the Bible 
contains within itself all that under God is 
required to account for and dispose of all 
forms of infidelity, and to turn to the best and 
highest uses all that man can learn of nature ; 

* I liave spoken of Kinj^sley as a living writer ; but as these 
pages are passing tlirougli the press, the Atlantic cable brings the 
sad intelligence of his death. 



222 MODERN SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT. 

if only its truths can be presented in an intel- 
ligent and loving manner^ and by the lips of 
men themselves animated by the Divine Spirit, 
whose inspiration speaks in the Sacred Scrip- 
tures. That this may be the high aim of those 
to whom these lectures have been more espe- 
cially addressed, is my earnest wish and 
prayer. 



APPENDIX. 



The Animal Nature of Eozoon. 

A S much unreasonable scepticism has been ex- 
-^^^ pressed in some quarters with reference to 
the animal nature of Eozoon Oanadense^ and as 
the author is responsible for naming and first de- 
scribing it as a Foraminifer, it may be well here to 
give a short statement of the leading reasons for 
regarding it as a fossil. 

(1.) The Laurentian limestones may be sup- 
posed, like the great limestones of later formations, 
to have been accumulated by the action of animal 
life ; and the probability of this is increased by their 
association with large quantities of carbon in the 
form of graphite, and with phosphates and metallic 
sulphates. This probability has been well argued 
by Hunt and Dana ; and, if they are organic lime- 
stones, they might be expected still to show some 
traces of organic remains. 

(2.) The specimens of Eozoon o'ccur in definitely 
limited masses of various sizes and in certain lay- 
ers of the limestone, in the manner in which the 



224 APPENDIX. 

fossil Protozoans known as Stromatoporse occur in 
the Silurian limestones ; and when weathered or 
polished they present very much the appearance 
of those Stromatoporse, and would be readily taken 
by any collector for fossils of that type. 

(3.) When examined under the microscope, they 
justify this presumption, by showing in tlieir* cal- 
careous laminae distinct structures ; namely, a proper 
wall penetrated by microscopic tubuli, and larger 
ramifying canals, penetrating the thicker parts of 
the laminae. These are precisely the structures 
found in the larger fossil Foraminifera of the Num- 
niuline group, and in allied modern Foraminifera. 
Further, the Foraminifera are oceanic animals of 
very simple structure, and of verj'- wide if not 
universal distribution in geological time and geo- 
graphically, and therefore among the most likely 
creatures to be found in the oldest rocks. 

(4.) Fragments having similar structures are 
widely distributed in the Laurentian limestones, in 
addition to the larger luasses showing the general 
form. 

(5.) The attempts which have been made to ex- 
plain these forms by reference to crystallization, 
concretionary action, and pseudomorphism, are 
negatived by the fact that while the portions of the 
supposed fossil believed to have been its skeleton 
are nearly always in the state of carbonate of lime, 
the filling of the chambers and canals supposed to 
have been occupied with the soft substance of the 



APPENDIX. 225. 

animal, is sometimes serpentine, sometimes logan- 
ite, sometimes pyroxene, and sometimes dolomite 
or limestone. This variety of filling strengthens 
the conclusion that these forms were originally 
calcareous organisms whose cavities have been 
filled, according to circumstances, with different 
kinds of mineral matter. 

Drt Hunt has discussed, in his " Papers on Chem- 
istry and Geology," the chemical conditions under 
which Eozoon has been fossilized, and the resem- 
blance of these to those which occur in the case of 
other and undoubted fossils ; and his reasoning, as 
well as the association of glauconite or greensand 
with more modern foraminiferal deposits, and the 
recent results of the ^' Challenger " dredgings in 
the South Pacific, even establish a probability that 
the hydrous silicates filling Eozoon, as well as those 
associated with organic remains in other formations, 
may themselves be indirectly accumulated by the 
influence of organic beings in the sea. 



B, 



The Testimony of Paloeontology with regard to EvO'^ 

lution. 

Professor Nicholson, of the Durham University 
College at Newcastle, England, has recently commu- 
nicated to the Victoria Institute a very interesting 
paper on this subject, in which he discusses the 

15 



226 APPENDIX, 

explanations given by Darwin as to the failure of 
the succession of fossil animals to show intermedi- 
ate links connecting species, or other evidences of 
derivation. He argues that the breaks in the geo- 
logical succession of animals are not such as would 
be expected on the theory of the derivation of 
species from one another ; that the imperfections 
of the geological record, in such extensive and 
continuous series as, for example, the Palaeozoic 
Rocks of North America, are not so great as to 
affect their testimony to the succession of forms 
required, had this existed. That the sequence of 
species allied to each other, in successive forma- 
tions, is not such as to indicate a genetic connec- 
tion of these species, except in the case of such 
nearly allied specific forms as are probably mere 
races ; that the coming in o'f new generic types 
without apparent ancestry, and their disappearance 
without apparent successors, are highly unfavorable 
to the probability of derivation. I have myself, in 
my report on the '' Devonian Plants of Canada," 
held the same line of argument as regards fossil 
plants, and have shown that it applies also to the 
fossil mollusks and other invertebrates of the Pleis- 
tocene period. The following extracts illustrate 
these points. The first is Dr. Nicholson's sum- 
mary of conclubions. 

" 1. The common phenomenon of closely allied forms 
directly succeeding one another in time, renders it a 
reasonable supposition that in certain zoological groups 



APPENDIX. 227 

many forms so distinct as to have been described by 
competent observers as distinct species may have de- 
scended from a single primitive ancestral type. 

" 2. The evidence at present in our hands is opposed 
to the view that this production of groups of allied 
forms from as many primitive types has been effected 
solely or mainly by " natural selection ; " though it is 
probable that this agency may have played a subordi- 
nate part in the process. 

" 3. New types of life are constantly making their 
appearance, without, so far as we know, being preceded 
by any closely allied types ; and we have, therefore, no 
positive ground for believing that the origin of such 
types is due to evolution from pre-existent forms. 

" 4. Variability — even in the most variable groups 
— has never been shown to be indefinite; but, on the 
contrary, appears to be confined within certain fixed 
limits for each species ; in some cases wide, in others 
very narrow. Palaeontology shows no instances in 
which we can positively assert that the variability has 
been unlimited; and, though we meet with types con- 
nected by intermediate links, we have also to account 
for the existence of a vast number of isolated forms, 
which, so far as our present knowledge goes, stand 
alone, and are not intimately related to other forms. 

" 5. Even where we find types wliich may be re- 
garded as strictly transitional or intermediate (as ITip- 
parion in its relation to Anchitherium on the one hand, 
and Equus on the other hand), we nevertheless are 
confronted with forms which are in themselves quite 
distinct, and which could not be confounded with the 
forms which they serve to connect. 



228 APPENDIX. 

"6. We cannot fairly have recourse to the "imper- 
fection of the record " as satisfactorily explaining the 
absence of the numerous intermediate types required by 
the Darwinian theory. Such imperfection admittedly 
exists, and is in some instances almost hopelessly great. 
On the other hand, we have had in other instances a 
fairly com/plete series of successive forms preserved to 
us. This is the case with the Brachiopoda and Cepha- 
lopoda, for example, and it is by these and similarly 
well-preserved groups that any theory of the origin of 
species will have to be tested. 

"7. The examination of such tolerably complete 
groups affords support to the belief that evolution has 
operated within certain limits, and has been one of the 
causes which has led to the producticm of new forms. 
Even in the best-preserved groups, however, we meet 
constantly with isolated types, and we are incessantly 
met with the sudden appearance of new types. An 
excellent example of this is to be found in the sudden 
appearance of new species of Ammonites in the Liassic 
rocks, and their very definite range and complete limi- 
tation to known zones. The study of such groups 
would, therefore, lead us to reject any exclusive doc- 
trine of evolution. 

" 8. Whilst certain types of life exhibit a striking 
variability, others exhibit an equally striking persistence 
and immobility. This would go far to prove that 
changes in external conditions have little to do with the 
origin of variations / since some forms appear to vary 
even under approximately constant conditions, whilst 
others remain unchansred even when submitted to the 
most varying surroundings. 



APPENDIX. 229 

"9. In some instiinces it can even be shown that 
entire gi'oups of species have existed without change 
through periods which we may justly estimate as ex- 
ceedingly long. Thus, Principal Dawson affirms that 
of more than two hundred species of fossils, chiefly 
Mollusca, from the Post-pliocene deposits of Canada, 
no one form can be shown to have varied materially, 
during the long period which separates the oldest 
boulder-clay from the present time, and in spite of 
notable climatal and geographical changes. 

" 10. Upon the whole, we may conclude that palae- 
ontology, in its present stage of development, offers no 
strong support, or is directly opposed, to the special 
theory of the origin of species advocated by Mr. Dar- 
win. On the other hand, many known palaeontological 
facts would lead us to infer that, in certain cases and 
within certain limits, new forms have been produced by 
the modification of pre-existent types. Palaeontology, 
therefore, would appear to support, at any rate, a par- 
tial doctrine of evolution. 

"11. It remains for future consideration, whether 
evolution — in so far as it has operated at all — has not 
been effected by means of inherent tendencies impressed 
upon living beings by the Creator. On this view, evo- 
lution is not a mere disorderly and fortuitous process, 
by which a given animal or plant is produced out of a 
different one by the operation of chance and accidental 
surroundings ; but it becomes an orderly process, by 
which certain forms of life have from the beginning 
been impressed vnth the inherent pov^er of developing iii 
certain fixed directions.^ and thus of giving rise to a 
definite series of specific types. 



230 APPENDIX. 

" 12. It further remains for future consideration, 
wliether this orderly process of evohition has always 
been effected in a gradual manner, and whether it has 
not been occasionally effected by changes taking place 
suddenly and^:>e?' saltum. 

" 13. Finally, it remains to consider within what 
limits evolution has opemted, and what supplementary 
causes may be found to have acted in the production of 
new forms of life. Or, rather, it remains to consider 
w^hether evolution is a main, or only a subsidiary, agency 
in the production of new species." 

The following are general conclusions on the 
same subject, deduced from the study of palaeozoic 
plants, and contained in my " Report on the Devo- 
nian and Upper Silurian Plants of Canada, 1871." 

" 1. Botanists proceed on the assumption, vindicated 
by experience, that, within the period of human obser- 
vation, species have not materially varied or passed 
into each other. We may make, for practical purposes, 
the same assumption with regard to any given geologi- 
cal period, and may hold that for each such period 
there are specific types, which, for the time at least, are 
invariable. 

" 2. When we inquire what constitutes a good species 
for any given period, we have reason to believe that 
many names in our lists represent merely varietal 
forms or erroneous determinations. This is the case 
even in the modern flora ; and in fossil floras, through 
the i^overty of specimens, their fragmentary condition 
and various states of preservation, it is still more likely 
to occur. Every revision of any group of fossils detects 



APPENDIX. 231 

numerous synonymes, and of these many are incapable 
of detection without the comparison of large suites of 
specimens. 

" 3. We may select from the flora of any geological 
period certain forms, which I shall call specific types^ 
which may for such period be regarded as unchanging. 
Having settled such types, we may compare them with 
similar forms in other periods ; , and such comparisons 
will not be vitiated by the uncertainty which arises 
from the comparison of so-called species, which may, in 
many cases, be mere varietal forms, as distinguished 
from specific types. Our types may be founded on 
mere fragments, provided that these are of such a nature 
as to prove that they belong to distinct forms which 
cannot pass into each other, at least within the limits of 
one geological period. 

" 4. When we compare the specific types of one 
period with those of another immediately precedent or 
subsequent, we shall find that some continue unchanged 
through long intervals of geological time, that others 
are represented by allied forms regarded either as 
varietal or specific, and as derived or otherwise, accord- 
ing to the view which we may entertain as to the per- 
manence of species. On the other hand, we also find 
new types not rationally deducible on any theory of 
derivation from those known in other periods. Farther, 
in comparing the types of a poor period with those of 
one rich in species we may account for the ai)pearance 
of new types in the latter by the deficiency of informa- 
tion as to the former ; where many new types appear 
in the poorer period this conclusion seems less probable. 
For example, new types appearing in poor formations, 



232 APPENDIX. 

like the Lower Erian and Lower Carboniferous, have 
greater significance than if they appeared in the Middle 
Erian or in the Coal Measures. 

" 5. When specific types disappear without any known 
successors, under circumstances in which it seems un- 
likely that we should have failed to discover their con- 
tinuance, we may fairly assume that they have become 
extinct, at least locally ; and where the field of obser- 
vation is very extensive, as in the great coal fields of 
Europe and America, we may esteem such extinction 
as practically general, at least for the northern hemi- 
sphere. When many specific types become extinct 
together, or in close succession, we may suppose that 
such extinction resulted from physical changes; but 
where single types disappear, under circumstances in 
which others of similar habit continue, we may not 
unreasonably conjecture that, as Pictet has argued in 
the case of animals, such types may have been in their 
own nature limited in duration, and may have died out 
without any external cause. 

" 6. With regard to the introduction of specific types, 
we have not as yet a sufficient amount of information. 
Even if we freely admit that ordinary specific forms, as 
well as mere varieties, may result from derivation, this 
by no means excludes the idea of primitive specific 
types originating in some other way. Just as the 
chemist, after analyzing all compounds and ascertaining 
all allotropic forms, arrives at length at certain elements 
not mutually transmutable or derivable, so the botanist 
and zoologist must expect sooner or later to arrive at 
elementary specific types, which, if to be accounted for 
at all, must be explained on some principle distinct 



APPENDIX, 233 

from that of derivation. The position of many modern 
biologists, in presence of this question, maybe logically 
the same with that of the ancient alchemists with refer- 
ence to the chemical elements, though tlie fallacy in 
the case of fossils may be of more difficult detection. 
Our business at present, in the prosecution of palaeo- 
botany, is to discover, if possible, what are elementary 
or original types, and, having found these, to inquire as 
to the law of their creation." 

The following review of the same subject is 
ba^sed. on the new geological facts recently ob- 
tained in the Cretaceous and Tertiary beds of 
Western America, and is contained in my Annual 
Address as President of the Natural History Society 
of Montreal, May, 1874 : — 

"Simple though the structure of these Western 
regions is, it has already given rise to controversies, 
more especially with reference to the age of the plants 
and animals whose remains have been found in these 
formations south of the United States boundary. In 
looking over these controversies, I am inclined in the 
first place to believe that we have in the West a grad- 
ual passage from the Cretaceous to the Tertiary beds, 
and that these last may scarcely admit of a definite 
division into Eocene and Miocene. We may thus have 
in these regions the means of bridging over what has 
been one of the widest gaps in the earth's history, and 
of repairing one of the greatest imperfections in the 
geological record. 

" Physically, the change from the Cretaceous to the 
Tertiary was one of continental elevation, — drying up 



234 APPENDIX, 

the oceanic waters in which the marine animals of the 
Cretaceous lived, and affording constantly increasing 
scope for land animals and plants. Thus it must have 
happened that the marine Cretaceous animals disap- 
peared first from the high lands and lingered longest in 
the valleys, while the life of the Tertiary came on first 
in the hills and was more taixlily introduced on the 
plains. Hence it has arisen that many beds which 
Meek and Cope regard as Cretaceous on the evidence 
of animal fossils, Newberry and Lesquereux regard as 
Tertiary on the evidence of fossil plants. This depends 
on the general law that in times of continental eleva- 
tion newer productions of the land are mixed with 
more antique inhabitants of the sea ; while on the con- 
trary in times of subsidence older land creatures are 
liable to be mixed with newer products of the sea. 
Thus, in Vancouver's Island, plants which lieer at 
first regarded as Miocene, have been washed down into 
waters in which Cretaceous shell-fishes still swarmed. 
Thus Cope maintains that the lignite-bearing or Fort 
Union group contains remains of Cretaceous reptiles, 
while to the fossil botanist its plants appear to be 
unquestionably Tertiary. Hence also we are told that 
the skeleton of a Cretaceous Dinosaur has been found 
stuffed with leaves which Lesquereux regards as Eocene. 
At first these apparent anachronisms seem puzzling, and 
they interfere much with arbitrary classifications. Still 
they are perfectly natural, and to be expected where a 
true geological transition occurs. They afford, more- 
over, an opportunity of settling the question whether 
the introduction of living things is a slow and gradual 
evolution of new types by descent with modification, or 



APPENDIX, 235 

whether, according to the law so ably illustrated by 
Barrande in the case of the Cephalopods and Trilobites, 
new forms are introduced abundantly and in perfection 
at once. The physical change was apparently of the 
most gradual character. Was it so with the organic 
change ? That it was not is apparent from the fact that 
both Dr. Asa Gray and Mr. Cope, who try to press this 
transition into the service of evolution, are obliged in 
the last resort to admit that the new flora and fauna 
must have migrated into the region from some other 
place. Gray seems to think that the plants came from 
the north, which other considerations render not im- 
probable. Cope supposes the mammals came from the 
south. Neither seems to consider that if giant Sequoias 
and Dicotyledonous trees and large herbivorous mamma- 
lia arose in the Cretaceous or early Tertiary, and have 
continued substantially unimproved ever since, they 
must have existed somewhere for periods far greater 
than that which intervenes between the Cretaceous and 
the present, in order to give them time to be evolved 
from inferior types ; and that we thus only push back 
the difficulty of their origin, with the additional disad- 
vantage of having to admit a most portentous and fatal 
imperfection in our geological record. 

"The actual facts are these. The flora of modern type 
comes into being in the Cretaceous of the West without 
any known ancestors, and it extends with so little 
change to our time that some of the Cretaceous species 
are probably only varietally distinct from those now 
living. On the other hand the previous Jurassic flora 
had died out apparently without successors. In like 
manner the Cretaceous Dinosaurs and Cephalopods 



236 APPENDIX, 

disappear without j^rogeny, though one knows no rea- 
son why they might not still live on the Pacific Coast. 
The Eocene mammals make their appearance in a like 
mysterious way. This is precisely what we should 
expect if groups of species are introduced at once by 
some creative process. .It can be explained on the 
theory of evolution, only by taking for granted all that 
ought to be proved, and imagining series of causes and 
effects of which no trace remains in the record. 

" The problems for solution are, however, much more 
complicated than the derivationists seem to suppose. 
Let us illustrate this by the plants. The Cretaceous 
flora of North America is in its general type similar to 
that of the Western and Southern part of the continent 
at present. It is also so like that of the Miocene of 
Europe that they have been supposed to be identical. 
In Europe, however, the Cretaceous and Eocene floras, 
though with some American forms, have a different 
aspect, more akin to that of floras of the Southern Hem- 
isphere. There have therefore been more fluctuations 
in Europe than in America, where an identical group of 
genera seems to have continued from the Cretaceous 
until now. Nay, there is reason to believe that some 
of the oldest of these species are not more than varie- 
tally distinct from their modern successors. Some that 
can be traced very far back are absolutely identical with 
modern forms. For example, I have seen specimens of 
a fern collected by Dr. Newberry from the Fort-Union 
group of the Western States, one of those groups dis- 
puted as of Cretaceous or Tertiary date, which is abso- 
lutely identical with a fern found by Mr. G. M. Dawson 
in the Lignite Tertiary of Manitoba, and also with 



• APPENDIX. 287 

specimens described by the Duke of Argyle from the 
Miocene plant beds of Mull. Further, it is undoubtedly 
our common Canadian sensitive fern, — Onoclea sensi- 
hilis. There is every reason to believe that this is 
merely one example out of many, of plants that were 
once spread over Europe and America, and have come 
down to us unmodified throughout all the vicissitudes 
of the Tertiary ages. But wliile this is the case, some 
species have disappeared without known successors, and 
others have come in without known predecessors. Nay, 
whole floras have come in without known origin. Since 
the Miocene age the great Arctic flora has spread itself 
all around the globe, the distinctive flora of North East- 
ern America and that of Europe have made their ap- 
pearance, and the great Miocene flora, once almost 
universal in the Northern Hemisphere, has as a whole 
been restricted to a narrow area in Western and warm 
temperate North America. Even if with Gray, in his 
address of two years ago before the American Associa- 
tion, we are to take for granted that the giant Pines 
(Sequoias) of California are modified descendants of 
those which flourished all over America and Europe in 
the Miocene, Eocene, and Cretaceous, we have in these 
merely an exceptional case to set against the broad 
general facts. Even this exception fails of evolutionary 
significance, when we consider that the two species of 
Sequoia which have been taken as special examples 
are at best merely survivors of many or several species 
known in the Cretaceous and Tertiary. The process of 
selection here has been merely the dropping out of sev- 
eral species which are of unknown origin, .nnd the sur- 
vival in a very limited area of two, whicli are even now 



238 APPENDIX. 

probably verging on extinction. In other words, the 
two extant species of Sequoia may have continued 
unchanged except varietally from Mesozoic times, and 
other species existed then and since which have disap- 
peared ; but as to how any of them began to exist we 
know nothing, except that, for some mysterious reason, 
there were more numerous and far more widely dis- 
tributed species in the early days of the group than now. 
This is precisely Barrande's conclusion as to the Palaeo- 
zoic Trilobites and Cephalopods, and my own conclu- 
sion as to the Devonian and Carboniferous plants. The 
record tells of rapid culmination ; and then not evolu- 
tion, but elimination by the struggle for existence. 

" In the mean time the record of the rocks is thus decid- 
edly against evolutionists in the particular points to 
which I have above adverted, more especially in the 
abrupt appearance of new forms under several speciiic 
types and without apparent predecessors. They should 
direct their attention in this connection to the appear- 
ance of Foraminifera in the Lauren tian ; of Sponges, 
Brachiopods, Trilobites, Phyllopods, Crinoids, and Ce- 
phalopods in the older Palaeozoic ; of Land Snails, Milli- 
pedes, Insects, Fishes, Labyrinthodonts, Acrogens and 
Gymnosperms in the middle and later Palaeozoic ; of 
Belemnites, Dinosaurs, Ornithosaurs, and other Reptiles, 
and of Marsupial Mammals and Dicotyledonous trees 
in the Mesozoic ; of Placental Mammals and Man in the 
Tertiary and Modern. When they shall have shown 
the gradations by which these, out of the many cases 
which may be cited, have been introduced, and this 
without assuming an imperfection in the record incred- 
ible in itself and destructive of its value as a history of 



APPENDIX. 239 

the earth, they may be in a position to rebuke us for 
our unbelief. 

" But it may be asked : Have we no positive doc- 
trine as to the introduction of species ? In answer I 
would say that it is conceivable that the origin of spe- 
cies may be one of those ultimate facts beyond which 
science by its own legitimate methods cannot pass, and 
that all we can hope for is to know something of the 
modes of action of the creative force and of the modifi- 
cations of which species when introduced are suscepti- 
ble. In any case it is by searching for these latter 
truths that we may hope successfully to approach the 
great mystery of the origin of life. It is with reference 
to these truths also that the discussion of modern the- 
ories of derivation has been chiefly valuable ; and, in so 
far as established, they will remain as substantial results 
after these theories have been exploded. Among such 
truths I may mention the following : We have learned 
that in geological time species tend to arise in groups 
of like forms, perhaps in many parts of the world at 
once; so that genera and families culminate rapidly, 
then become stationary or slowly descend, and become 
restricted in number of species and in range. We have 
learned that in like manner each specific type has ca- 
pacities for the production of varietal and race forms 
which are usually exercised to the utmost in the early 
stages of its existence, and then remain fixed, or disap- 
pear and re-appear as circumstances may arise, and 
finally the races fall off one by one as it approaches 
extinction. Many of these races and varieties consti- 
tute conventional species as distinguished from natural 
species; and, in so far as they are concerned, descent 



240 APPENDIX. 

with modification occurs, though under very complex 
laws, and admitting of retrogression just as much as of 
advance. We have also learned that in the progress of 
the earth's history embryonic, generalized, and com- 
posite types take precedence in time of more specialized 
types, and thus that higher forms of low types precede 
higher types, and are often replaced by them. We 
are further, as the relation of varieties and species is 
investigated and their extension in time traced, becom- 
ing more and more convinced of the marvellous perma- 
nence of specific types, and of their powers of almost 
indefinite propagation in time. Lastly, vast stores of 
facts are being accumulated as to the migration of spe- 
cies from one area to another, and as to the connection 
of the great secuhar elevations and subsidences of conti- 
nents with their introduction and extinction. All these 
are substantial gains to science, and the time is at 
hand when they will lead to more stable theories of 
the history of life on the earth than those now cur- 
rent." 

In the mean time it is daily becoming more and 
more evident that the brilliant fabric of speculation 
erected by Darwin can scarcely sustain its own 
weight, still less afford any solid ground on which 
to build a satisfactory theorj^ of the origin of spe- 
cies ; and that we must be prepared to abandon 
the enticing but unsubstantial foundation of anal- 
ogy and go back to our old though slow mode of 
painful collection of facts and inductive reasoning 
thereon, if we desire in any degree to obtain a 
solution of the mystery of life. 



APPENDIX, 241 

I cannot better close this note than with the tes- 
timony of the lamented Agassiz in his latest paper 
on the hypothesis of eyolution. " As a palaeontol- 
ogist I have from the beginning stood aloof from 
this new theorj^- of transmutation now so widely 
admitted by the scientific world. Its doctrines in 
fact contradict what the animal forms buried in the 
rocky strata of our earth tell us of their own intro- 
duction and succession on the surface of the globe." 



c. 



Other Views as to the Antiquity of Prehistoric Man. 

In the text I have not entered into the discus* 
sion of some questions which have been raised as 
to Paleeocosmic man, and which may properly be 
noticed here. 

Professor Boyd Dawkins of Owen's College, 
Manchester, is one of the most zealous and suc- 
cessful students of the Pleistocene and Modern 
deposits of England, and has given many of his 
results and a summary of the general state of the 
subject in his recent work entitled " Cave Hunt- 
ing." He regards the skulls and skeletons of 
Engis, Cro-magnon, and Mentone as of uncertain 
age, and refuses to admit their '* Palaeolithic " or 
Palaeocosmic date. In this he differs from the 
manj^ able observers who have studied the actual 
relations of these remains. His principal reasons 

16 



242 APPENDIX, 

for bis scepticism are the following: First, the 
possibility that these bones may have accidentally 
or by interment at a later date become mixed witii 
the remains of the Mammoth age ; secondly, the 
improbability of men of so high a tj^pe physically 
having existed at so early a period ; and thirdly, 
the resemblance of the implements, &c., of the Pa- 
laeolithic age to those of the Esquimaux, whom he 
supposes to be the modern representatives of these 
ancient people. 

To these objections it may be answered : (1.) 
That, but for the foregone conclusion that the 
oldest men were of rude and brutal type, and the 
higher character of these remains, such doubts 
would probably not have occurred to any one. 
(2.) That the evidence collected by Schmerling, 
Dupont, Lartet, Riviere, and others seems sufficient 
to prove the age of the remains, more especially in 
the case of the Engis skull and the skeleton of 
Mentone, while facts stated by Dawkins himself as 
to the condition of the ivory objects found with the 
Paviland skeleton in England seem to confirm the 
testimony of the continental observers. (8.) All 
these skeletons so closely resemble each other as to 
prove identitj^ of race, and they' differ from any of 
the Neocosraic or historic races that have succeeded 
them. (4.) If we refuse to accept these as remains 
of Palseocosmic men, we have then the remarkable 
anomaly of the existence of great quantities of 
implements and other relics of this age without 



APPENDIX. 243 

any certain osseous debris of the people to whom 
they have belonged. (6.) The carving on the 
bone and ivory objects found in the French '' Pal- 
aeolithic " caves bespeaks a people of more than 
average taste and intelligence, while the character 
of the Palaeolithic implements generally would 
indicate a people of great muscular power and 
rude habits, and in both these respects the skulls 
and skeletons found correspond with the other 
remains. (6.) The resemblance between the Pal- 
aeolithic weapons and those of the Esquimaux does 
not necessarily imply a precise accordance in the 
other characteristics of the two peoples. Further, 
the Esquimaux are long-headed, and are allied by 
language and customs to the Kutchin and other 
races of North America, who are of good bodily 
development ; so that the imagined resemblance to 
them would not necessarily militate against the 
stature or dolichocephalism of the European abo- 
rigines. 

Dawkins supposes a long interval of time be- 
tween the Neolithic or Neocosmic age and the 
Palaeolithic. His arguments for this, based on 
extinction of animals, erosion of valleys and de- 
posits in caves, have already been discussed in the 
text, and are of no real geological force. He 
includes the whole period preceding the Neocos- 
mic age under the term Pleistocene, and divides 
this into three subordinate periods : (1.) The late 
Pleistocene, in which are included both the Rein- 



244 APPENDIX. 

deer and Mammoth periods of the French geolo- 
gists, and which he truly says cannot be separated 
by animal remains, though they are separated by the 
occurrence of a subsidence of the land. This late 
Pleistocene corresponds, in so far as man is con- 
cerned, with our Palseocosmic age. (2.) The mid- 
dle Pleistocene, which corresponds with the early 
Glacial and later Pre-glacial periods, and in which 
Europe was inhabited by many species of mammalia 
which had disappeared in the Post-glacial or late 
Pleistocene. Dawkins refers the earliest traces of 
man to this age, but on no better grounds than the 
flint flakes of the Crayford clay and Brixham 
caye, — which are probably natural, — and the 
occurrence of certain boulders (supposed, on alto- 
gether insufficient eyidence, to haye been deposited 
by a glacier), in connection with a fragment of bone, 
belieyed to be human, in the Victoria caye at Settle 
in Yorkshire. It is a curious illustration of the set 
of opinion in England at present, and the compul- 
sion which it imposes on honest workers, that Daw^ 
kins should hold the Engis skull to be of uncertain 
age, while he trusts to such eyidences as these. 

It is not pretended that any yery definite limits 
can be assigned to these subdiyisions of the Pleisto- 
cene age ; and the physical eyidence seems to show 
that the late Pleistocene should be diyided into 
two portions by a subsidence which inaugurates 
the Neocosmic or Modern age, and that the middle 
Pleistocene is the time of re-eleyation from the 



APPENDIX. 245 

great subsidence of the early Pleistocene, which 
subsidence was gradual and closed the Pliocene 
age. This, as I have elsewhere shown, is the only 
view which enables us to correlate the deposits of 
these ages on the two sides of the Atlantic. 

Geikie,inhis work •' The great Ice Age," — which 
is really an extended plea for the views of the ex- 
treme glacialists, which are now beginning to give 
place to more common-sense conclusions, — believes 
man to have been Pre-glacial on somewhat differ- 
ent grounds. Holding the Pliocene to have been 
followed by a time of intense cold and by a " con- 
tinental ice cap," he supposes a warm interval in 
which man made his appearance in Europe, suc- 
ceeded by a second glacial age in which man was 
exterminated or expelled, to return with the mod- 
ern animals. This theory depends altogether on 
the requirements of the hypothesis of land glacia- 
tion in the temperate latitudes, and obliges the 
ingenious author to separate from each other the 
undoubtedly contemporary northern and southern 
forms of animals of the proper Post-glacial age, in 
which he intercalates his second period of glacia- 
tion. On this last point I have elsewhere made 
the following remarks : * — 

" It is most unsafe to reason as to the cHmate required 
by extinct mammalia, especially in contravention of the 
evidence of contemporaneous existence afforded by the 

* "Leisure Hour," Nov., 1874. 



246 APPENDIX. 

occurrence of their remains. Even the hippopotamus 
of the English caves and gravels may have been pro- 
tected by a coating of fat like the walrus. The elevated 
land of Post-glacial Europe, if it were clothed with for- 
ests, would have precisely the climatal properties which 
we know in America and Asia favor the intermixture 
of the animals of different latitudes. Again, that so- 
called Palaeolithic implements are not found over the 
boulder deposits of North Britain is merely a conse- 
quence of the fact that they are in the main limited to 
the chalk and flint districts, a circumstance which, as 
already hinted, throws grave doubts on their being even 
so ancient as usually supposed, and gives them a local 
rather than a chronological character. Further, in 
Eastern America we know that the higher elevation of 
the land immediately preceding the Modern period was 
accompanied by a milder climate than that which now 
prevails, and that this occurred after the close of the 
Glacial period. I must, therefore, reject this supposed 
later Glacial age intervening between Palaeolithic and 
Modern man, and maintain that there is no proof of the 
existence of man earlier than the close of the Glacial 
age proper." 

In opposition to these arrangements of Geikie 
and Dawkins, I may place the following tabular 
view of the succession in Great Britain, condensed 
from the summary given in Lyell's '' Antiquity of 
Man," pp. 331 et seq, : — 



APPENDIX. 



247 



Newer Pliocene, 



Continental Period. Land el- 
evated. Climate mild . . . 



Cromer Forest bed. 



Post-pliocene or Pleistocene. 



Period of Submergence. 
Land depressed 1,000 feet or 
more. Climate cold, and mudi 
floating ice 

Second Continental Period. 
Land again elevated until much 
higher than at present, and 
British Islands united to main 
land. Climate continental, and 
surface densely wooded . . . 



Marine Post-pliocene drift. 



Passage of German flora into 
England. Mammoth and 
Megaceros and Cave Bear, 
etc., living in Europe. Ad- 
vent of Pakeocosmic Man. 



Modern. 



Period of depression and os- 
cillation, ending in re-elevation, 
and present geographical condi- 
tion of Europe 



Modern or Historic age. Land 
slowly subsiding 



Age of Amiens gravels and 
raised beaches, and close of 
Palaeocosmic and beginning 
of Neocosmic age. Men sub- 
jected to great diminution of 
numbers by floods and subsi- 
dences. Several species of 
mammals become extinct. 
Stone age of antiquaries. 

Bronze and Iron ages of anti- 
quaries. 



This I believe expresses as nearly as possible the 
latest ascertained results of geological inquiry, and 
with local modifications it is applicable to the 
whole Northern Hemisphere. 

I add here two facts whi<3h show how dangerous 
it is to reason, as to the age of superficial deposits, 
on imperfect data. It has been constantly asserted 
that the thick crusts of stalagmite overlying cave 
deposits are a proof of great antiquity. But Daw- 



248 , APPENDIX, 

kins has shown that the stalagmite in the cave of 
Ingleborough is growing at the rate of a quarter of 
an inch per annum, and still more rapid deposition 
has been shown in the case of waters flowing from 
mines. Hence, as Dawkins well remarks, the 
thick beds of stalagmite in Kent's Hole and other 
caves, may have accumulated in less than one 
thousand years. Yet this stalagmite accumulation 
is one argument, if not the sole argument, for the 
great antiquity of the implements found in this 
cave, and described in the Reports of the British 
Association- Committee. Stalagmite crusts are a 
warrant in so far for the undisturbed condition of 
the deposits found under them, but not for their 
antiquity. Much of the evidence for the great 
antiquity of man has been derived from the occur- 
rence of flint flakes in the deposits of caves ; but 
there is good ground for the suspicion that many 
of these flakes are natural and have not been used 
by man. The Brixham cave, for example, is con- 
stantly referred to as having afforded evidence of 
man in its lowest beds, in the form of flint " knives " 
or '' implements " found by explorations under- 
taken under the auspices of the Royal Society. 
Yet the actual fact appears to be that the objects 
found were merely chips of flint, without any clear 
evidence of human use ; that they occurred mixed 
with gravel ; and that similar flakes, mixed with 
similar gravel, form a constituent of the ordinary 
surface deposits in the vicinity of the cave. Fur^ 



APPENDIX. 249 

ther, defective observations at one time led to the 
inference that the valley near the cave must have 
been excavated to a depth of seventy feet since 
the gravel found with these supposed knives was 
swept into it, whereas it now appears that the 
material of similar gravel is found on the same side 
with the cave. These facts are brought out in a 
recent paper by Mr. Whitley,* and they contain an 
emphatic warning to geologists against committing 
themselves to doubtful conclusions of this kind, 
fitted not only to propagate error, but to bring geo- 
logical evidence itself into disrepute. 

Geologists were perhaps at one time too sceptical 
as to evidences of prehistoric man ; but the heed- 
lessness Avith which some of them have been run- 
ning into the opposite extreme is on all accounts 
greatly to be deprecated. Several causes have I 
think contributed to this result. One is the ten- 
dency to apply by a false analogy the evidence as 
to the great antiquity of the older formations to 
the human period. Another is the influence of 
the evolutionist philosophy, which requires almost 
unlimited time for the process of development, and 
besides has been training geologists to its own 
loose modes of argument from analogy and disre- 
gard of facts and induction. A third, I fear, is the 
straining after sensationalism and premature and 
startling generalizations, which has been one of 
the evil effects of the rapid extension of scientific 
* " Transactions Victoria Institute, 1874." 



250 APPENDIX, 

discovery, and of the struggle for existence on the 
part of scientific writers. These causes are proba- 
bly temporary, and facts are accumulating which 
at no distant time will place our knowledge of this 
subject on a more solid basis. 



D. . 

The Deluge, 

A separate lecture might well have been devoted 
to this subject, which I have, however, already 
noticed in *' Archaia." 1 may merely state here : 
(1.) That there are some grounds for anticipating 
that this event may yet be identified with the Post- 
glacial or modern subsidence which geology indi- 
cates, in which case Palaeocosmic man would 
correspond to Antediluvian man. (2.) That the 
Scriptural deluge was probably universal only in 
the sense of being co-extensive with the abodes of 
Antediluvian man. (3.) That the terms of the 
Scripture record in reference to the animals said to 
have been preserved and destroyed, give reason to 
believe that some species were at least locally ren- 
dered extinct by the deluge. Five distinct lists 
are given, a comparison of which shoAvs that only 
certain specified species were to be taken into the 
ark. (4.) The structure of the narrative shows 
that it is to be taken as the report of an eye-witness, 
— a sort of ''log" of the deluge, — and is to be 



APPENDIX, 251 

understood in this sense ; a view corroborated by 
the structure of the Chaldean version, which has 
been deciphered on the clay tablets of Nineveh. 



E. 



Professor PritcJiard on Science and Religion, 

In an address before the Church Congress at 
Brighton, Professor Pritchard, of Oxford, has 
given a summary of the actual position of science 
with reference to religion, as it appears in Eng- 
land. He has no objection to evolution if actually 
proved, and if considered as a mode of operation 
of the Creator ; and he quotes Bishop Butler's 
saying, that, '' an intelligent Author of nature 
being supposed, it makes no alteration in the mat- 
ter before us whether he acts in nature every 
moment, or at once contrived and executed his 
own part in the plan of the world." He shows, 
however, that evolution, as maintained by Spencer 
and Darwin, is not really proved by science ; and 
he ably argues for design from the structure of the 
eye, and urges against Darwin the arguments of 
his ally Wallace against the derivation of man 
from lower animals. These arguments I have not 
noticed in this work, because Wallace's previous 
admissions as to the origin of the lower animals 
weaken very much their force, though they are 
valuable as showing that the gap between the 



252 ' APPENDIX. 

higher nature of man and the lower animals is 
more difficult to bridge over than any other, 

Pritchard makes a good point in his own special 
field, by bringing out, in opposition to the idea of 
all things being potentially contained in atoms, 
the views of Herschel and Maxwell, as follows : — 

" Our knowledge of these atomic forces, so far as it 
at present extends, does not leave us in serious doubt 
as to their origin ; for there is a very strong presump- 
tive evidence drawn from the results of the most mod- 
ern scientific investigation that they are neither eternal 
nor the products of evolution. No philosopher of re- 
cent times was better acquainted than Sir J. Herschel 
with the interior mechanism of nature. From his 
contemplation of the remarkably constant, definite, 
and restricted, yet various and powerful interactions 
of these elementary molecules, he was forced to the 
conviction that they possessed all the characteristics 
of ^manufactured articles. The expression is memora- 
ble, accurate, and graphic; it may become one of the 
everlasting possessions of mankind. Professor Max- 
well, a man whose mind has been trained by the men- 
tal discipline of the same noble university, arrives at 
the same conclusion ; but as his knowledge has ex- 
ceeded that of Herschel on this jDoint, so he goes fur- 
ther in the same direction of thought. ' No theory of 
evolution,' he says, 'can be formed to account for the 
similarity of the molecules throughout all time, and 
throughout the whole region of the stellar universe, for 
evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and 
the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of gen- 
.eration or destruction.' 'None of the processes of 



APPENDIX. ' 253 

nature, since the time when nature began, have pro- 
duced the slightest difference in the properties of any 
molecule. On the other hand, the exact equality of 
each molecule to all others of the same kind precludes 
the idea of its beino; eternal and self-existent. We 
have reached the utmost limits t>f our thinking facul- 
ties when we have admitted that,, because matter can- 
not be eternal and self-existent, it must have been 
created. These molecules,' he adds, ' continue this day 
as they were created, perfect in number and measure 
and weight, and from the ineffaceable characters im- 
pressed on them we may learn that those aspirations 
after truth in statement and justice in action, which we 
reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours 
because they are the essential constituents of the image 
of him who in the beginning created not only the 
heaven and the earth, bat the materials of which 
heaven and earth consist.' And this, my friends, this 
is the true outcome of the deepest, the most exact, and 
the most recent science of our age. A grander utter- 
ance has not come from the mind of a philosopher since 
the days when Newton concluded his 'Principia' by 
his immortal scholium on the majestic personality of 
the Creator and Lord of the universe." 

After giving some good advice to scientific men 
as to the study of religious literature, and to theo- 
logians as to the study of nature, he concludes 
with the following hopeful views of the present 
state of the subject : — 

" There is no need to be frightened at the phantoms 
raised by such terms as matter, and force, and mole- 



254 APPENDIX, 

cules, and protoplasmic energy, and rhythmic vibra- 
tions of the brain ; there are no real terrors in a philos- 
ophy which affirms the conceivability that two and two 
might possibly make five ; or in that w^hich predicates 
that an infinite number of straight lines constitute a 
finite surface ; or in that which denies all evidence of 
a design in nature; or in that which assimilates the 
motives w^hich induce a parent to support his ofispring 
to the pleasures derived from wine and music; or in 
that which boldly asserts the unknowableness of the 
Supreme, and the vanity of prayer. Surely, philoso- 
phies which involve results such as these have no per- 
manent grasp on human nature ; they are in themselves 
suicidal, and, in their turn, and after their brief day, 
will, like other such philosophies, be refuted or denied 
by the next comer, and are doomed to accomplish the 
happy despatch." 



INDEX. 



Addison's hymn 
^ons, creative . 
Agassiz on derivation 

species 
Age of the earth . . 
Ahaz, sun-dial of . 
" Aiones," explained 
America, pre-liistoric man in 
Animals, creation of 
Antediluvians . . 
Antiquity of the earth 

man 
Archaeology . . 
Archebiosis . . 
Aryan religions . 
Astronomy of the Bible 
Atoms, doctrine of . 
Atmosphere, creation 
Augustine on creative 
Aurochs 



187, 
of. 
days 



Baal, worship of . . 

*'Bara" 

Bastian on archebiosis 
Beale on protoplasm 
Beauty in nature . 
Beginning, the . . 
*' Bemah," explained 
Bible not to teach science 

its manner of treating 
nature . . . 

on law, order, etc 

on miracles . . 

on development . 

teleology of . . 

on type in nature 



PAGE 

16 

84 

241 

135 

81 

66 

87 

162 

119 

178 

78 

159, 241 

201 

196 

212 

64 

193, 252 

51 

85 

161 

197 



60 

49 

197 

198 

38 

49 

114 

20 

23 
30 
33 
35 
37 
40 



Bible, its idea of heavens . 

on the atmosphere . . 

on the starry heaven 

on the third heaven . 

on creative days . . 

on chaos 

its idea of the earth . 

on creation of animals 

on primitive man . . 

on immortality . . . 

on ethnic religions . . 

on superstitious fears . 

on primitive theology . 
Birds, creation of ... . 
Bottles of heaven .... 
Brachycephalic skulls . . . 



PAGE 

48 

51 

63 

69 

84 

91 

98, 101 

114 

175 

205 

211 

217 

206 

116 

56 

158 



Cambrian age 122 

Carpenter on mental physiology 188 

Chaos, nature of 91 

Continents, origin of ... . 97 
Cranial characters of ancient 

men 167 

Creation as related to science . 25 

nature of 90 

Crust of the earth 97 

Cro-magnon, cave of ... . 164 

Darwin, theory of 139 

Dawkins on antiquity of man . 241 

Days, creative 84 

Deep, the 91 

Deluge, the 250 

Derivation, theories of . . . 132 
Design, argument for . . 40, 188 

Development, in nature ... 35 

Dinosaurs 122 

Dolichocephalic men .... 158 



256 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Dry land, origin of 97 

Dupont on Belgian caves . . 157 

Earth, the word explained . . 101 

hung on nothing . . . 105 

supported on bases . . 101 

Eden of the Bible 176 

Elijah's prayer 60 

Engis, cave of 163 

skull of 171 

Eozoon 120 

animal nature of .... 223 

Ether gods 53 

Euhemerism 215 

Evil in nature 29, 35 

Evolution 187 

Expanse, the 51 

Eye, origin of 194 

Female divinities 215 

Firmament 51 

not solid 54 

Fishes, creation of 122 

Fossil remains 80 

plants and derivation . 230 

Foundations of the earth . . 101 

Fourth commandment ... 86 

Geikie on antiquity of man . . 245 
General relations of Bible and 

science 20 

Geology, its generalizations . 79 
compared with Bible 88 
tabular summary of . 83 
its order of creation . 88 
its explanation of ori- 
gin of land ... 97 
its testimony as to 
- first plants . . . 106 
its history of animal 

life 117 

its testimony as to 

derivation. ... 142 
its testimony as to 

origin of man . . 149 
its testimony as to 

antiquity of man . 159 

Glacial age 150 

God, primitive knowledge of . 206 



PAGE 

Guizot, quoted 14 

'* Hay ath," explained. . . . 114 

Heavens 47 

classified 50 

atmospheric 51 

third 69 

starry 64 

as symbol 67 

Herodotus, quoted 34 

Horse, ancestry of . ... . . 144 

Hunt on primeval chemistry . 91 

Huxley on Engis skull ... 171 

on protoplasm . . 128, 197 

Intervention, divine .... 42 

Immortality, belief in . . . 203 

in Old Testament 205 

Isaiah on heavens 65 

Job, xxviii 102 

xxxvi 58 

Joshua's miracle 66 



Kingsley on superstition , 



216 



La Madelaine, cave of . . . 170 
Lartet and Christy on Cro^ 

magnon 165 

Laurentian rocks 120 

Law in nature 30, 31 

of variation 138 

Leaf, structure of .... . 108 

Light, creation of 44 

and luminaries . . 63, 64 
Lubbock, referred to ... . 202 

Mammalia, creation of ... 123 

Mammoth age 156 

Man, origin of 152 

antiquity of . . . .159,241 

Bible history of . . . .176 

Materialistic science .... 191 

INIcCosh on types 41 

Mentone, cave of 163 

Meteorology of the Bible . . . 53 
Mill, referred to . . . .35, 40, 188 
Milton on the atmosphere . . 51 
Mining described in Job ... 102 



INDEX. 



257 



PAGE 

Miracle 66 

Monotheism as related to sci- 
ence 27 

Miiller, Max, on science of 

religion 210 

Mythology not in Bible ... 24 

how explained . . 214 

Nature as referred to in Bible 23 

Neanderthal skull 171 

Neocosmic men 155 

*' Neolithic" age 154 

^'Nephilim" ...... 178 

Nicholson on derivation . . . 225 

** Or," name of light .... 63 

Order in nature 30 

in creation ..... 88 

Origin of life 113 

Palaeocosmic men 155 

** Palaeolithic" age 154 

Pantheism 191 

Palaeontology and derivation 

144, 225 

Paul on unity of God .... 192 

on argument of design . 189 

on germination of seed . 199 

Physical theories of life . . . 126 

Plan in nature 30 

Planetary heaven 64 

Plants, creation of 105 

Pleistocene period 150 

Ponton on phases of nature . 72 

Post-glacial age 151 

Prayer 59,66 

Primordial age 121 

Pritchard on science and re- 
ligion 251 

Progress in nature 35 

Psalm viii 65 

xix 18 

civ 57, 102 

Rain, prayer for 59 

*' Rakiah," explained .... 51 

Reindeer age 156 

Reptiles, creation of . . . . 122 

Resurrection, doctrine of . . 200 



Revelation, its sphere . . 

of St. John . 

Riviere on Mentone cave 

Rolling up of heaven . . 



PAGE 

. 21 
. 67 

. 163 
. 55 



Sabbath, doctrine of ... . 87 
Sadducees, characterized . . 185 
Sceptical philosophies . . . 186 
Science as distinct from reve- 
lation 9, 22 

Science to be free 15 

Sea, origin of life in .... 120 

Semitic religions 213 

" Shamayim," explained . . 50 

" Sheretz," explained . . . . 115 

Sidereal heaven 64 

Species, questions as to . . . 134 

origin of 132 

Spencer's philosophy .... 186 

Spirit of God 95 

Spiritual heaven 69 

Strauss on origin of life . . . J26 
Superstition, its origin . . 27, 216 

Table of Biblical and geological 

periods 76 

Table of geological history . . 83 

" Tannin," explained .... 115 

Teleology of Bible 37 

Third heaven 69 

Turanian race 158 

religions 212 

Tylor, referred to 202 

Tyndall on life 129, 193 

Type in the Bible 40 

Unity in nature 27 

Use in nature 30 

Variation, laws of 138 

Vegetation, the first .... 105 

Waters above the heavens . • 51 

Weather gods 53 

Whitley on antiquity of man . 249 

Wilson on American skulls. . 172 

Windows of heaven .... 56 

*' Yom," explained 85 



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